Magnitude of High-Energy Meson-Meson Total Cross Sections

Abstract

The total cross section for meson-meson scattering at high energy is calculated using a simple, but plausible, $\mathrm{SU}(n)$-symmetric multiperipheral model. The resulting ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{T}$ is of the order $\frac{16{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{3}}{NM_{V}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}$, where ${M}_{V}$ is the central mass of the dominant low-energy resonance multiplet in elastic meson-meson scattering and $N$ is the dimensionality of the multiplet of the incident mesons. The nongeometric character of this result is discussed.