Investigation of the leading and subleading high-energy behavior of hadron-hadron total cross sections using a best-fit analysis of hadronic scattering data

Abstract

In the present investigation we study the leading and subleading high-energy behavior of hadron-hadron total cross sections using a best-fit analysis of hadronic scattering data. The parametrization used for the hadron-hadron total cross sections at high energy is inspired by recent results obtained by Giordano and Meggiolaro [J. High Energy Phys. 03 (2014) 002] using a nonperturbative approach in the framework of QCD, and it reads ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{\mathrm{tot}}\ensuremath{\sim}B{\mathrm{ln}}^{2}s+C\mathrm{ln}s\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{ln}s$. We critically investigate if $B$ and $C$ can be obtained by means of best-fits to data for proton-proton and antiproton-proton scattering, including recent data obtained at the LHC, and also to data for other meson-baryon and baryon-baryon scattering processes. In particular, following the above-mentioned nonperturbative QCD approach, we also consider fits where the parameters $B$ and $C$ are set to $B=\ensuremath{\kappa}{B}_{\mathrm{th}}$ and $C=\ensuremath{\kappa}{C}_{\mathrm{th}}$, where ${B}_{\mathrm{th}}$ and ${C}_{\mathrm{th}}$ are universal quantities related to the QCD stable spectrum, while $\ensuremath{\kappa}$ (treated as an extra free parameter) is related to the asymptotic value of the ratio ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{\mathrm{el}}/{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{\mathrm{tot}}$. Different possible scenarios are then considered and compared.