Commentary on "Total Hadronic Cross Section Data and the Froissart-Martin Bound", by Fagundes, Menon and Silva

TL;DR

This commentary challenges the claim that the Froissart bound is violated in recent $pp$ cross section data, arguing that the data are consistent with the bound when analyzed with a different statistical approach.

Contribution

The paper questions the statistical methodology used in the original study and provides supplementary evidence supporting the compatibility of data with the Froissart bound.

Findings

Data are consistent with a $ abla^2 s$ behavior that satisfies the Froissart bound

The statistical methodology of the original paper is questioned

Ultra-high energy $pp$ cross section data support $ abla^2 s$ growth

Abstract

This Commentary on the paper "Total Hadronic Cross Section Data and the Froissart-Martin Bound", by Fagundes, Menon and Silva, to be published in Braz. J. of Phys., Vol. 42 (2012) (arXiv 1112.4704), was invited by the Editors of the Brazilian Journal of Physics to appear directly after the above authors' printed version, in the same journal issue. We here challenge that paper's conclusions that the Froissart bound was violated. We will show that this conclusion follows from a statistical methodology that we question, and will present compelling supplementary evidence that the latest ultra-high energy experimental $pp$ cross section data are consistent with a $\ln^2 s$ behavior that satisfies the Froissart bound.