An alternative to exchange degeneracy: The total absorption limit

Abstract

Whereas global duality implies exchange degeneracy in the framework of a «pure» Regge model, it is shown that, in Reggeized absorption models, global duality leads to another possible description of the same physics: a model without exchange degenerate Regge poles, whose main feature is a condition of total absorption on the Pomeron partial waves at high energy. This alternative to exchange degeneracy is shown to have been used implicitly in existing fits\((\pi {\mathcal{N}},{\mathcal{N}}{\mathcal{N}},K{\mathcal{N}})\). We then study pion-pion scattering using factorization. We build a phenomenological amplitude compatible with global duality, exoticism and factorization of Regge poles. Semi-local duality in thes-waves is then shown to imply directly the total-absorption limit. No evidence has been found at present against this new approach to duality, where the Pomeron exchange, and thus inelastic unitarity plays an important and unusual part.