Local nuclear slope and curvature in high-energy pp and anti-pp elastic scattering

The local nuclear slope B(s, t) = (d / dt) (ln (dσn (s, t) /dt)) is reconstructed from the experimental angular distributions with a procedure that uses overlapping t-bins, for an energy that ranges from the ISR to the S anti-pp S and the Tevraton. Predictions of several models of (p, p) and (anti-p, p) elastic scattering at high energy are tested in B(s, t) at small vertical stoke t vertical stroke. Only a model with two-components pomeron and odderon gives a satisfactory agreement with the (non-fitted) slope data, in particular for the evolution of B(s, t) with s as a function of t in anti-pp scattering. This modell predicts a similar behavior for pp and anti-pp scattering at small vertical stroke t vertical stroke. A detailed confirmation for pp collisions would be expected from RHIC. The extreme sensitivity of the local nuclear curvature C(s, t) = (1 / 2) (d / dt) (B (s, t)) with the choise for a pomeron model is emphasized. The present model predicts a change of sign. The ideal place to search for an eventual confirmation of this prediction would be LHC: