Fresh look at experimental evidence for odderon exchange

• Published in: Physics letters. B Vol. 839; p. 137826
• Main Authors: Cui, Zhu-Fang, Binosi, Daniele, Roberts, Craig D., Schmidt, Sebastian M., Triantafyllopoulos, D.N.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 10-04-2023; Elsevier
• Subjects: Diffractive processes; High-energy hadron+hadron interactions; Odderon; Regge phenomenology; Schlessinger point method; Strong interactions in the standard model of particle physics; Diffractive processes; Schlessinger point method; Odderon; Strong interactions in the standard model of particle physics; High-energy hadron+hadron interactions; Regge phenomenology
• ISSN: 0370-2693; 1873-2445
• DOI: 10.1016/j.physletb.2023.137826

Theory suggests that in high-energy elastic hadron+hadron scattering, t-channel exchange of a family of colourless crossing-odd states – the odderon – may generate differences between pp¯ and pp cross-sections in the neighbourhood of the diffractive minimum. Using a mathematical approach based on interpolation via continued fractions enhanced by statistical sampling, we develop robust comparisons between pp¯ elastic differential cross-sections measured at √s=1.96 TeV by the D0 Collaboration at the Tevatron and function-form-unbiased extrapolations to this energy of kindred pp measurements at √s/TeV=2.76,7,8,13 by the TOTEM Collaboration at the LHC and a combination of these data with earlier cross-section measurements at √s/GeV=23.5,30.7,44.7,52.8,62.5 made at the intersecting storage rings. Focusing on a domain that straddles the diffractive minimum in the pp¯ and pp cross-sections, we find that these two cross-sections differ at the (2.2−2.6)σ level; hence, supply evidence with this level of significance for the existence of the odderon. If combined with evidence obtained through different experiment-theory comparisons, whose significance is reported to lie in the range (3.4−4.6)σ, one arrives at a (4.0−5.2)σ signal for the odderon.