Unified model of high energy hadronic scattering

The soft neutral vector meson exchange model is presented as a fundamental theory capable of explaining very high energy hadronic scattering at all angles. The model calculation lends itself to two natural approximation schemes, leading to amplitudes for near forward and wide-angle scattering respectively. In particular, the familiar eikonal amplitude describing scattering at small angles is extended to include radiative corrections to the hadron lines; and a construction is suggested in which external, multiplicative form factors and internal, Chou--Yang type form factor dependence appear simultaneously. For wide-angle scattering, previous successful fits to proton form factor and proton-proton elastic scattering data are generalized to make predictions for other elastic and quasi-elastic scattering processes. (auth)