Quark-gluon model for diffraction at high energies.

Abstract

We study elastic diffraction in the pp and p\ifmmode\bar\else\textasciimacron\fi{}p channels at high energies through an eikonal model, built in impact-parameter space out of QCD and parton-model concepts. The eikonal function is separated into two terms, a constant contribution from valence quarks and a gluon-fusion-initiated term. The latter is responsible for the whole energy dependence of the model at high energies. We discuss the inclusion of a real part for the elastic amplitude, the removal of multiple diffraction zeros, and the behavior of our model up to the multi-TeV energy range (the Froissart bound is not saturated). We find excellent agreement with a large body of experimental data.