Hollowness in $pp$ Scattering

Abstract

It is argued that the hollowness effect (depletion in the absorptive part of the scattering cross section at small values of the impact parameter) in the proton-proton scattering at the the LHC energies finds its origin in the quantum nature of the process, resulting in large values of the real part of the eikonal phase. The effect cannot be reconciled with an incoherent superposition of the absorption from the proton constituents, thus suggests the change of this basic paradigm of high-energy scattering.