Unexpected behaviour of cross sections of high energy protons

Abstract

Abstract. Nobody expected that protons will try to keep their entity in their collisions at higher and higher energies. However, the comparison of experimental results on proton-proton interactions from ISR to LHC energies clearly shows this tendency with a definitely increasing share of the elasic scattering cross section. This unexpected behaviour immediately leads to the unexpected corollary about the shape of the spatial interaction region of the two protons. The unquestionable principle of unitarity combined with available experimental data on elastic scattering is used to get new conclusions about this shape. Its evolution at present energies from the ISR to the LHC and predictions about its behaviour at ever higher energies are considered. The shape can transform rather drastically if the share of elastic processes keeps rising. The possible origin of the effect and its interrelation to the strong interaction dynamics are speculated. Cosmic ray studies can help in clarifying this behaviour.Experimental data on proton-proton interactions in high energy collisions show quite a special and unexpected behaviour of the share of elastic scattering compared to inelastic processes with increasing energy. It decreases at the beginning (at comparatively low energies) but then starts to increase. From Intersecting Storage Rings (ISR) energies of 20-60 GeV up to higher energies 7-13 TeV at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) it increases by more than a factor 1.5! According to intuitive classical ideas we would expect a stable tendency with increasing share of the break-down of protons compared to their survival probability.If a cup falls to the floor, it breaks into pieces but sometimes stays intact. The harder it hits the floor, the less chance to be unbroken.If two high energy protons collide, many new particles (mostly pions) are produced, but sometimes they scatter elastically and retain their entity. It is surprising enough that at very high collision energies the proportion of elastic processes increases with increasing energy from the ISR to the LHC.One can assume that either the asymptotic freedom or the extremely short time of flight of high energy protons through each other are in charge of such a surprising effect. The unquestionable principle of unitarity combined with the available experimental data on elastic scattering is used to get new conclusions about the shape of the interaction region of colliding protons. Its evolution at present energies is considered. Some predictions about its behaviour at even higher energies are described with different assumptions on the relative roles of elastic scattering and inelastic processes. The shape can transform rather drastically if the proportion of elastic processes keeps rising. This unexpected property leads to an unexpected corollary. The possible origin of the effect a e-mail: dremin@td.lpi.ru and its interrelation to the strong interaction dynamics are speculated.Our main goal here is to get some knowledge about the spatial region of interactions of high ene...