From soft to hard regime in elastic pion-pion scattering above resonances

Abstract

We discuss the onset of the dominance of the Glauber-Gribov-Landshoff (GGL) component of pQCD hard two-gluon (2G) exchange contribution to hard elastic $\pi\pi$ scattering at moderate energies . Such a hard $\pi\pi$ scattering could via final state interaction on the $\gamma \gamma \to \pi^+ \pi^-$ reaction in which pQCD quark-exchange contribution is known to be short of strength. While in the nonrelativistic approximation the GGL amplitude is known to be free of suppression by the pion form factor, we show that in the relativistic light-cone approach it acquires a residual, albeit a weak, suppression. Furthermore,z the same mechanism it is free of the end-point contributions. We evaluation the GGL amplitude with a model light-cone wave function consistent with the pion charge form factor data. The soft contribution to elastic $\pi\pi$ scattering is estimated based on the $NN$ and $\pi N$ total cross section data and Regge factorization, which gives the $\pi\pi$ total cross sections consistent with the ones deduced earlier from the absorption model analysis of the $\pi N \to X N, X \Delta$ data. We evaluate the large-$|t|$ tail of the soft amplitude within the Regge absorption models. We find that while in the same sign $\pi^\pm\pi^\pm$ scattering the hard GGL mechanism takes over at $|t|\gsim$ 3 GeV$^{-2}$, in the opposite-sign $\pi^\pm\pi^\mp$ scattering the hard GGL mechanism $|t|\lsim$ 4 GeV$^{-2}$.