Elastic and inelastic 19.8 GeV/c proton-proton collisions in nuclear emulsion are examined using an external proton beam of the CERN Proton Synchrotron. Multiple scattering, blob density, range and angle measurements give the momentum spectra and angular distributions of secondary protons and pions. The partial cross-sections corresponding to inelastic interactions having two, four, six, eight, ten and twelve charged secondaries are found to be, respectively, (16.3±8.4) mb, (11.5 ± 6.0) mb, (4.3 ± 2.5) mb, (1.9 ± 1.3) mb, (0.5 ± 0.5) mb and (0.5±0.5)mb. The elastic cross-section is estimated to be (4.3±2.5) mb. The mean charged meson multiplicity for inelastic events is 3.7±0.5 and the average degree of inelasticity is 0.35±0.09. Strong forward and backward peaking is observed in the center-of-mass system for both secondary charged pions and protons. Distributions of energy, momentum and transverse momentum for identified charged secondaries are presented and compared with the results of work at other energies and with the results of a statistical theory of proton-proton collisions.
A measurement of the total $pp$ cross section at the LHC at $\sqrt{s}=7$ TeV is presented. In a special run with high-$\beta^{\star}$ beam optics, an integrated luminosity of 80 $\mu$b$^{-1}$ was accumulated in order to measure the differential elastic cross section as a function of the Mandelstam momentum transfer variable $t$. The measurement is performed with the ALFA sub-detector of ATLAS. Using a fit to the differential elastic cross section in the $|t|$ range from 0.01 GeV$^2$ to 0.1 GeV$^2$ to extrapolate to $|t|\rightarrow 0$, the total cross section, $\sigma_{\mathrm{tot}}(pp\rightarrow X)$, is measured via the optical theorem to be: $$\sigma_{\mathrm{tot}}(pp\rightarrow X) = 95.35 \; \pm 0.38 \; ({\mbox{stat.}}) \pm 1.25 \; ({\mbox{exp.}}) \pm 0.37 \; (\mbox{extr.}) \; \mbox{mb},$$ where the first error is statistical, the second accounts for all experimental systematic uncertainties and the last is related to uncertainties in the extrapolation to $|t|\rightarrow 0$. In addition, the slope of the elastic cross section at small $|t|$ is determined to be $B = 19.73 \pm 0.14 \; ({\mbox{stat.}}) \pm 0.26 \; ({\mbox{syst.}}) \; \mbox{GeV}^{-2}$.
In a special run of the LHC with $\beta^\star = 2.5~$km, proton-proton elastic-scattering events were recorded at $\sqrt{s} = 13~$TeV with an integrated luminosity of $340~\mu \textrm{b}^{-1}$ using the ALFA subdetector of ATLAS in 2016. The elastic cross section was measured differentially in the Mandelstam $t$ variable in the range from $-t = 2.5 \cdot 10^{-4}~$GeV$^{2}$ to $-t = 0.46~$GeV$^{2}$ using 6.9 million elastic-scattering candidates. This paper presents measurements of the total cross section $\sigma_{\textrm{tot}}$, parameters of the nuclear slope, and the $\rho$-parameter defined as the ratio of the real part to the imaginary part of the elastic-scattering amplitude in the limit $t \rightarrow 0$. These parameters are determined from a fit to the differential elastic cross section using the optical theorem and different parameterizations of the $t$-dependence. The results for $\sigma_{\textrm{tot}}$ and $\rho$ are \begin{equation*} \sigma_{\textrm{tot}}(pp\rightarrow X) = \mbox{104.7} \pm 1.1 \; \mbox{mb} , \; \; \; \rho = \mbox{0.098} \pm 0.011 . \end{equation*} The uncertainty in $\sigma_{\textrm{tot}}$ is dominated by the luminosity measurement, and in $\rho$ by imperfect knowledge of the detector alignment and by modelling of the nuclear amplitude.
A measurement of the total $pp$ cross section at the LHC at $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV is presented. An integrated luminosity of $500$ $\mu$b$^{-1}$ was accumulated in a special run with high-$\beta^{\star}$ beam optics to measure the differential elastic cross section as a function of the Mandelstam momentum transfer variable $t$. The measurement is performed with the ALFA sub-detector of ATLAS. Using a fit to the differential elastic cross section in the $-t$ range from $0.014$ GeV$^2$ to $0.1$ GeV$^2$ to extrapolate $t\rightarrow 0$, the total cross section, $\sigma_{\mathrm{tot}}(pp\rightarrow X)$, is measured via the optical theorem to be: $\sigma_{\mathrm{tot}}(pp\rightarrow X) = {96.07} \; \pm 0.18 \; ({{stat.}}) \pm 0.85 \; ({{exp.}}) \pm 0.31 \; ({extr.}) \; {mb} \;,$ where the first error is statistical, the second accounts for all experimental systematic uncertainties and the last is related to uncertainties in the extrapolation $t\rightarrow 0$. In addition, the slope of the exponential function describing the elastic cross section at small $t$ is determined to be $B = 19.74 \pm 0.05 \; ({{stat.}}) \pm 0.23 \; ({{syst.}}) \; {GeV}^{-2}$.
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