Coulomb-nuclear interference effects in proton-proton scattering: A simple new eikonal approach

TL;DR

This paper introduces a straightforward eikonal-based method to accurately account for Coulomb-nuclear interference in high-energy proton-proton scattering, providing universal correction parametrizations and a practical model for data analysis.

Contribution

It offers a new simple approach to include Coulomb effects in eikonal models, with universal corrections and a nuclear amplitude model for small momentum transfer.

Findings

Corrections are largely independent of eikonal details.

Provided universal parametrizations for Coulomb-nuclear interference.

Developed a nuclear scattering amplitude model with proper phase and diffraction zeros.

Abstract

We present a simple new approach to the treatment of Coulomb-nuclear interference and form-factor effects in high-energy proton-proton scattering in the context of eikonal models for the scattering amplitude. We show that the corrections to the nuclear and Coulomb amplitudes do not depend sensitively on the details of the eikonal amplitude and can be taken as universal, and present parametrizations for the necessary corrections. We also present a simple model for the nuclear scattering amplitude useful for data analysis at small momentum transfer which builds in the proper nuclear phase and the diffraction zeros in the real and imaginary parts of the amplitude.