High-energy behavior of hadronic total cross sections from lattice QCD

TL;DR

This paper uses lattice QCD and analytic continuation of Wilson-loop correlators to study the high-energy behavior of hadronic total cross sections, suggesting a universal $B \, \log^2 s$ growth at asymptotic energies.

Contribution

It introduces a nonperturbative lattice QCD approach to analyze the asymptotic energy dependence of hadron-hadron total cross sections, supporting a universal $\log^2 s$ behavior.

Findings

Indications of a universal $\log^2 s$ growth in total cross sections.

Use of lattice data fitted with physically constrained functional forms.

Support for the asymptotic behavior from nonperturbative QCD methods.

Abstract

By means of a nonperturbative approach to soft high-energy hadron-hadron scattering, based on the analytic continuation of Wilson-loop correlation functions from Euclidean to Minkowskian theory, we shall investigate the asymptotic energy dependence of hadron-hadron total cross sections in lattice QCD: we will show, using best fits of the lattice data with proper functional forms satisfying unitarity and other physical constraints, how indications emerge in favor of a universal asymptotic high-energy behavior of the kind $B \log^2 s$ for hadronic total cross sections.