The problems linked with the extraction of the basic parameters of the hadron elastic scattering amplitude at the LHC are explored. It is shown that one should take into account the saturation regime which will lead to new effects at the LHC.
A method of determination of the real part of the elastic scattering amplitude is examined for high energy proton-proton and proton-nuclei elastic scattering at small momentum transfer. The method allows to decrease the number of model assumptions, to obtain the real parts of the spin non-flip and spin-flip amplitudes in the narrow region of momentum transfer.
The following effects in the nearly forward (soft) region of the LHC are proposed to be investigated: 1) At small |t| the fine structure of the cone (Pomeron) shouldbe scrutinized: a) a break of the cone near $tapprox - 0.1 ~ GeV$^2, due to the two-pion threshold, and required by t-channel unitarity, is expected, and b) possible small-period oscillations between $t=0$ and the dip region. 2) In measuring the elastic $pp$ scattering and total $pp$ cross section at the LHC, the experimentalists are urged to treat the total cross section $sigma_t,$ the ratio $rho$, the forward slope $B$ and the luminosity ${cal L}$ as free arameters, and to publish model-independent results on ${dN/{dt}}.$ 3) Of extreme interest are the details of the expected diffraction minimum in the differential cross section. Its position, expected in the interval $0.4<-t<1$ GeV$^2$ at the level of about $10^{-2} {rm mb} cdot$ GeV$^{-2}div 10^{-1} {rm mb}cdot$ GeV$^{-2}$, cannot be predicted unambiguously, and its depth, i.e. the ratio of $dsigma/dt$ at the minimum to that at the subsequent maximum (about $-t=5 $GeV$^2$, which is about 5 is of great importance. 4) The expected slow-down with increasing $|t|$ of the shrinkage of the second cone (beyond the dip-bump), together with the transition from an exponential to a power decrease in $-t$, will be indicative of the transition from soft to hard physics. Explicit models are proposed to help in quantifying this transition. 5) In a number of papers a limiting behavior, or saturation of the black disc limit (BDL) was predicted. This controversial phenomenon shows that the BDL may not be the ultimate limit.
Using a unified analytic representation for the elastic scattering amplitudes of pp scattering valid for all energy region, the behavior of observables in the LHC collisions in the range $sqrt{s}$= 2.76 - 14 TeV is discussed. Similarly to the case of 7 TeV data, the proposed amplitudes give excellent description of the preliminary 8 TeV data. We discuss the expected energy dependence of the observable quantities, and present predictions for the experiments at 2.76, 13 and 14 TeV.
The problems linked to the extraction of the basic parameters of the hadron elastic scattering amplitude at the LHC are explored. The impact of the Black Disk Limit (BDL)$-$ which constitutes a new regime of the scattering processes - on the determination of these values is examined.
Deep-elastic pp scattering at c.m. energy 14 TeV at LHC in the momentum transfer range 4 GeV*2 < |t| < 10 GeV*2 is planned to be measured by the TOTEM group. We study this process in a model where the deep-elastic scattering is due to a single hard collision of a valence quark from one proton with a valence quark from the other proton. The hard collision originates from the low-x gluon cloud around one valence quark interacting with that of the other. The low-x gluon cloud can be identified as color glass condensate and has size ~0.3 F. Our prediction is that pp differential cross section in the large |t| region decreases smoothly as momentum transfer increases. This is in contrast to the prediction of pp differential cross section with visible oscillations and smaller cross sections by a large number of other models.