Theoretical aspects of high energy elastic nucleon scattering

Abstract

The eikonal model must be denoted as strongly preferable for the analysis of elastic high-energy hadron collisions. The given approach allows to derive corresponding impact parameter profiles that characterize important physical features of nucleon collisions, e.g., the range of different forces. The contemporary phenomenological analysis of experimental data is, however, not able to determine these profiles unambiguously, i.e., it cannot give the answer whether the elastic hadron collisions are more central or more peripheral than the inelastic ones. However, in the collisions of mass objects (like protons) the peripheral behavior of elastic collisions should be preferred.