Evidence for non-exponential elastic proton-proton differential cross-section at low |t| and √ s = 8 TeV by TOTEM

By G. Antchev, P. Aspell, I. Atanassov, V. Avati, J. Baechler, V. Berardi, M. Berretti, E. Bossini, U. Bottigli, M. Bozzo and 75 more. 2015

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Abstract The TOTEM experiment has made a precise measurement of the elastic proton–proton differential cross-section at the centre-of-mass energy s = 8 TeV based on a high-statistics data sample obtained with the β ⁎ = 90 m optics. Both the statistical and systematic uncertainties remain below 1%, except for the t-independent contribution from the overall normalisation. This unprecedented precision allows to exclude a purely exponential differential cross-section in the range of four-momentum transfer squared 0.027 | t | 0.2 GeV 2 with a significance greater than 7 σ . Two extended parametrisations, with quadratic and cubic polynomials in the exponent, are shown to be well compatible with the data. Using them for the differential cross-section extrapolation to t = 0 , and further applying the optical theorem, yields total cross-section estimates of ( 101.5 ± 2.1 ) mb and ( 101.9 ± 2.1 ) mb , respectively, in agreement with previous TOTEM measurements.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/39f4add5e187b54c6784cd5684e304c7ca47f997