Role of Coulomb interaction in elastic pion-proton scattering from holography

Differential cross sections of the elastic pion-proton scattering are investigated at very small momentum transfer in a holographic QCD model, considering both the strong and Coulomb interaction in the Regge regime. The strong interaction is described by the Pomeron and Reggeon exchange, and the Coulomb interaction is characterized by the one photon exchange. The two interactions are linked through an interference term and we only need to determine a single adjustable parameter involved in this term. As to the parameters for the strong interaction, we can utilize the values determined in the previous studies. The differential cross sections can be predicted without any additional parameters, and it is shown that our predictions are consistent with the experimental data. We explicitly show the momentum transfer dependence for the interference effect. The energy dependence of the contribution ratios for each component is also discussed.