New analyticity constraints on the high energy behavior of hadron–hadron cross sections

Abstract

We here comment on a series of recent papers by Igi and Ishida and Block and Halzen that fit high energy pp and p̄p cross section and ρ-value data, where ρ is the ratio of the real to the imaginary portion of the forward scattering amplitude. These authors used finite-energy sum rules and analyticity consistency conditions, respectively, to constrain the asymptotic behavior of hadron cross sections by anchoring their high energy asymptotic amplitudes – even under crossing – to low energy experimental data. Using analyticity, we here show that i) the two apparently very different approaches are in fact equivalent, ii) that these analyticity constraints can be extended to give new constraints, and iii) that these constraints can be extended to crossing-odd amplitudes. We also apply these extensions to photoproduction. A new interpretation of duality is given.