Will protons become gray at 13 TeV and 100 TeV?

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the behavior of proton-proton interactions at high energies, using LHC data to predict how the inelastic interaction region will evolve at 13 TeV and 100 TeV, suggesting it will become less dark slowly.

Contribution

It introduces phenomenological models to describe elastic and inelastic pp-scattering at high energies and predicts the gradual change in the inelastic interaction profile at future collider energies.

Findings

The 7 TeV regime is critical for pp-interactions.

LHC data at 7 and 8 TeV inform the models.

The inelastic interaction region will become less dark with increasing energy.

Abstract

It is shown that the regime of pp-interactions at 7 TeV is a critical one. The LHC data about elastic pp-scattering at 7 and 8 TeV are used to get some information about both elastic and inelastic profiles of pp-collisions. They are discussed in the context of two phenomenological models which pretend to describe the high energy pp-data with high accuracy. Some predictions following from these models for LHC energy 13 TeV and for energy 95 TeV of the newly proposed collider are discussed. It is claimed that the center of the inelastic interaction region will become less dark with increase of energy albeit very slowly.