High-energy scattering and the nature of the hadronic phase transition

General arguments and the reggeon calculus suggest that high-energy scattering may be describable as a phase transition. If the renormalized pomeron intercept is precisely 1, this transition is expected to be of second order. In this case, several inequalities and relations can be derived between the critical exponents describing the high-energy behaviour of diffractive scattering processes. These relations ensure that many requirements of s-channel unitarity are satisfied. Some experimental tests are suggested which may enable data at ISR energies to be useful in a phenomenological analysis of the nature of the hadronic phase transition. (Auth.)