Chapter 4.3.4 - Scattering and Production Processes at High Energies

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the scattering and production processes of elementary particles at high energies. At very high energies, the wavelengths of the incident hadrons are small, perhaps much smaller than the sizes of these hadrons. It is this property that simplifies the physical picture at high energies. Several models have been developed to understand the scattering of elementary particles. One of the most successful models is the droplet model, including the idea of limiting fragmentation. The physical basis of the droplet model consists of the some observations. First, the total proton–proton cross section remains essentially constant at high energies. Second, above 300 MeV of excitation energy, the nucleon has many excited states, and last, the large-angle elastic proton–proton cross section drops down spectacularly with energy. The chapter concludes with the discussion of relativistic quantum field theory.