High-energy hadron-hadron (dipole-dipole) scattering from lattice QCD

TL;DR

This paper pioneers the use of lattice QCD to study high-energy dipole-dipole scattering, employing Monte Carlo simulations to evaluate Wilson loop correlations and explore their implications for scattering amplitudes.

Contribution

First application of lattice QCD to high-energy hadron scattering, connecting Euclidean correlators with Minkowskian amplitudes through numerical simulations.

Findings

Numerical results for loop-loop correlation functions from lattice QCD.

Comparison with nonperturbative analytical estimates.

Discussion on analytic continuation and asymptotic cross-section behavior.

Abstract

In this paper the problem of high-energy hadron-hadron (dipole-dipole) scattering is approached (for the first time) from the point of view of lattice QCD, by means of Monte Carlo numerical simulations. In the first part, we give a brief review of how high-energy scattering amplitudes can be reconstructed, using a functional-integral approach, in terms of certain correlation functions of two Wilson loops and we also briefly recall some relevant analyticity and crossing-symmetry properties of these loop-loop correlation functions, when going from Euclidean to Minkowskian theory. In the second part, we shall see how these (Euclidean) loop-loop correlation functions can be evaluated in lattice QCD and we shall compare our numerical results with some nonperturbative analytical estimates that appeared in the literature, discussing in particular the question of the analytic continuation from Euclidean to Minkowskian theory and its relation to the still unsolved problem of the asymptotic s-dependence of the hadron-hadron total cross sections.