Contribution of Coulomb interaction to elastic pp and p p\bar scattering in holographic QCD

TL;DR

This paper investigates how Coulomb interactions influence elastic proton-proton and proton-antiproton scattering within a holographic QCD framework, showing that including photon exchange improves agreement with experimental data.

Contribution

It introduces the Coulomb interaction via photon exchange into holographic QCD models of elastic scattering, enhancing the understanding of interference effects without adding new adjustable parameters.

Findings

Coulomb interaction significantly affects differential cross sections.

The model's predictions align well with experimental data.

Interference effects are quantitatively characterized.

Abstract

The differential cross sections of elastic proton-proton (pp) and proton-antiproton (pp\bar) scattering are studied in a holographic QCD model, considering the strong and Coulomb interaction in the Regge regime. Based on previous studies of strong interactions described in terms of Pomeron and Reggeon exchange, we add the contribution of Coulomb interaction described by photon exchange. We present the momentum transfer dependence of the contribution rates for each component, especially for the Coulomb-nuclear interference, which refers to the cross term between both interactions. For the adjustable parameters for the strong interaction, we can adopt the values determined in previous studies, and there are no extra adjustable parameters that need to be determined for the Coulomb interaction. It is presented that the resulting differential cross sections are consistent with the data for pp and pp\bar scattering.