Theoretical aspects of high energy elastic nucleon scattering

TL;DR

This paper discusses the theoretical framework of the eikonal model for high-energy elastic nucleon scattering, emphasizing impact parameter profiles and their physical implications, while highlighting current limitations in experimental data analysis.

Contribution

It advocates for the eikonal model as the preferred approach and analyzes the physical significance of impact parameter profiles in nucleon collisions.

Findings

Eikonal model is strongly preferable for analyzing elastic high-energy hadron collisions.

Impact parameter profiles reveal physical features like the force range.

Current data analysis cannot definitively determine if elastic collisions are more central or peripheral.

Abstract

The eikonal model must be denoted as strongly preferable for the analysis of elastic high-energy hadron collisions. The given approach allows to derive corresponding impact parameter profiles that characterize important physical features of nucleon collisions, e.g., the range of different forces. The contemporary phenomenological analysis of experimental data is, however, not able to determine these profiles unambiguously, i.e., it cannot give the answer whether the elastic hadron collisions are more central or more peripheral than the inelastic ones. However, in the collisions of mass objects (like protons) the peripheral behavior of elastic collisions should be preferred.