Hadronic slopes: Their sensitivity to different assumptions and their implications on high energy extrapolations

A careful analysis shows: (i) that hadronic slopes are not very sensitive to the form one uses for the integrated cross sections and (ii) that if one extrapolates from the existing data to higher energies, one may expect the t=0 pp slope to exceed the anti pp one. Taken at face value, the latter conclusion lends some support to the odderon picture. (orig.)