Observation of Odderon effects at LHC energies: a real extended Bialas–Bzdak model study

Abstract

The unitarily extended Bialas–Bzdak model of elastic proton–proton scattering is applied, without modifications, to describe the differential cross-section of elastic proton–antiproton collisions in the TeV energy range, and to extrapolate these differential cross-sections to LHC energies. In this model-dependent study we find that the differential cross-sections of elastic proton–proton collision data at 2.76 and 7 TeV energies differ significantly from the differential cross-section of elastic proton–antiproton collisions extrapolated to these energies. The elastic proton–proton differential cross-sections, extrapolated to 1.96 TeV energy with the help of this extended Bialas–Bzdak model do not differ significantly from that of elastic proton–antiproton collisions, within the theoretical errors of the extrapolation. Taken together these results provide a model-dependent, but statistically significant evidence for a crossing-odd component of the elastic scattering amplitude at the at least 7.08 sigma level. From the reconstructed Odderon and Pomeron amplitudes, we determine the $\sqrt{s}$ dependence of the corresponding total and differential cross-sections.