New impact picture for low- and high-energy proton-proton elastic scattering

We improve significantly the impact picture that was used several years ago to predict the increase of total and integrated differential cross sections at high energies. The major improvements consist of the following: (1) The dependence of the Pomeron term on the momentum transfer is taken from a modified version of the relation between matter distribution and charge distribution, (2) Regge backgrounds are properly taken into account, and (3) a simple nontrivial form is used for the hadronic-matter current in the proton. For proton-proton elastic scattering, the phenomenological differential cross section is in good agreement with the experimental data in the laboratory momentum range of 14 to 2000 GeV/c, and is predicted for ISABELLE energy. Because of the third improvement, predictions are obtained for both polarization and $R$ parameters for proton-proton elastic scattering.