Applications of unitarity and duality to calculations of triple Regge couplings

The concepts of unitarity, Regge theory and duality are used to obtain triple Regge couplings. Two different assumptions are made about the nature of the Regge singularities in the vacuum state. The first is the conventional viewpoint in which the Pomeron and f trajectories are two separate real singularities in the complex angular momentum plane. The second--which also gives a reasonable description of the data and is suggested by recent studies of the dual multiperipheral model--is that there is an infinite set of complex singularities instead of the f. When combined with the Pomeron these can be represented by a single effective vacuum trajectory with intercept α = 0.85 for s less than approximately 45 GeV2. In the first study exchange degeneracy and the f-coupled Pomeron concept--which can be derived from unitarity and duality--are used to relate all the unknown triple Regge couplings describing the inclusive processes pp → pX, p → pX, and pd → dX in the triple Regge region to the triple Pomeron coupling, g/sub PPP/. This permits phenomenological analysis of these processes in terms of a small number of parameters. Finite mass sum rules are also utilized to calculate g/sub PPP/(t) from lower energy inclusive data. The second investigation is a dynamical calculation of triple Regge couplings from two-body parameters based on a scheme which combines unitarity and duality. Hadronic vertex form factors play an important role in this approach and two different models are assumed for them. Results are obtained consistent with experiment, but only at small momentum transfers