Slope analysis for elastic nucleon-nucleon scattering

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the energy dependence of the diffraction slope in elastic proton-proton and proton-antiproton scattering using experimental data, providing predictions for high-energy collider experiments.

Contribution

It introduces various analytic approximations for the diffraction slope's energy dependence and estimates the asymptotic shrinkage parameter across different energy domains.

Findings

Reasonable description of experimental slopes across energy ranges

Estimates of asymptotic shrinkage parameter $ ext{α'}_{ ext{P}}$

Predictions for diffraction slopes at NICA, RHIC, and LHC energies

Abstract

The diffraction slope parameter is investigated for elastic proton-proton and proton-antiproton scattering based on the all available experimental data at low and intermediate momentum transfer values. Energy dependence of the elastic diffraction slopes is approximated by various analytic functions. The expanded "standard" logarithmic approximations with minimum number of free parameters allow to describe experimental slopes in all available energy range reasonably. The estimations of asymptotic shrinkage parameter $\alpha'_{\cal{P}}$ were obtained for various $|t|$ domains based on the all available experimental data. Various approximations differ from each other both in the low energy and very high energy domains. Predictions for diffraction slope parameter are obtained for elastic proton-proton scattering at NICA, RHIC and LHC energies, for proton-antiproton elastic reaction in FAIR energy domain for various approximation functions.