The slope of the hadron spin-flip amplitude and the determination of \rho(s,t)

TL;DR

This paper re-examines the extraction of the ratio of real to imaginary parts of the scattering amplitude and the spin-flip amplitude in high-energy proton-proton and proton-antiproton elastic scattering, highlighting inconsistencies with dispersion relation analyses.

Contribution

It demonstrates the difficulty of reconciling experimental data with theoretical assumptions about scattering amplitudes at certain energies.

Findings

Inability to find reasonable amplitude structures matching data and dispersion relations.

Highlights discrepancies in ho(s,t) extraction at specific energies.

Questions the applicability of existing models in the Coulomb-hadron interference region.

Abstract

We re-examine the extraction of \rho(s,t), the ratio of the real part to the imaginary part of the scattering amplitude, and of the spin-flip amplitude, from the existing experimental data in the Coulomb-hadron interference region. We show that it is not possible to find reasonable assumptions about the structure of the scattering amplitude of proton-proton and proton-antiproton elastic scattering at high energy that would lead, in proton-antiproton scattering for 3.8 < p_L <6 GeV/c, to an agreement between data and an analysis based on dispersion relations.