Evidence for Non-Exponential Elastic Proton-Proton Differential Cross-Section at Low |t| and sqrt(s) = 8 TeV by TOTEM

The TOTEM collaboration Antchev, G. ; Aspell, P. ; Atanassov, I. ; et al.
Nucl.Phys.B 899 (2015) 527-546, 2015.
Inspire Record 1356731 DOI 10.17182/hepdata.73431

The TOTEM experiment has made a precise measurement of the elastic proton-proton differential cross-section at the centre-of-mass energy sqrt(s) = 8 TeV based on a high-statistics data sample obtained with the beta* = 90 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 sigma. 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.

1 data table match query

The elastic differential cross-section as determined in this analysis using the ''optimised'' binning.