Elastic and diffractive scattering at the LHC

Abstract

Inspired by the new TOTEM data on elastic $pp$ scattering at 13 TeV, we study the possibility to describe all the diffractive collider data (${\sigma }_{\mathrm{tot}},d{\sigma }_{\mathrm{el}}/dt$, $\rho \equiv$Re$A$/Im$A$, \sd) in a wide interval of energy (0.0625 to 13 TeV) in the framework of a two-channel eikonal model. We show that a satisfactory description can be achieved without an odd-signature (Odderon) exchange contribution. We consider the possible role of the QCD Odderon which may improve the description of $\rho$ and discuss the importance of the odd-signature term if the amplitude were to exceed the black disc limit.

17 pages, 4 figures, version published in Phys. Lett. B