Prediction of elastic and total cross sections using the Reggeon-photon coupling analogy

The Reggeon-photon coupling analogy, which relates the coupling of the natural-parity trajectories (P,f,ω,rho, A2) at any vertex to that of the photon, is used to predict successfully a wide variety of elastic and total cross sections. As a special case, the cross sections for γp → Vp where V is any vector meson (rho, ω, phi, psi, UPSILON or their daughters) and thence obtain an excellent prediction of the recently measured σsup(tot)(γp) at high energies. (author)