Proton periphery activated by multiparticle dynamics

TL;DR

The paper demonstrates that protons become more active and 'black' at their periphery with increasing collision energy, influencing total cross sections and related phenomena at LHC energies.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the impact parameter distribution showing the increasing peripheral activity of protons at high energies, linking it to multiparticle dynamics.

Findings

Protons' size and blackness increase with energy.

Peripheral regions of protons play a growing role in cross section rise.

Enhanced peripheral activity relates to ridge phenomena and diffraction.

Abstract

It is shown that protons become more active at the periphery with increase of their collision energy. By computing the impact parameter distribution of the proton-proton overlap function at LHC energies and comparing it with ISR (and S$p\bar p$S for $p\bar p$) data, we conclude that the peripheral region of protons plays an increasing role in the rise of total cross sections through multiparticle dynamics. The size of the proton as well as its blackness increase with energy. The protons become more black both in the central region and, especially, at the periphery. This effect can be related to the ridge phenomenon and to the inelastic diffraction processes at LHC energies.