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IN RETROSPECT

Discovery of the odderon

Nature Reviews Physics volume 3, page 680 (2021)Cite this article

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In the 1950s, experimental data on the total cross-section for proton–proton collisions (σpp) suggested that σpp was initially decreasing as the collision energy increased and then flattening out to a constant value. Isaak Pomeranchuk hypothesized a ‘crossing even’ mechanism to explain this behaviour, which involved an equal contribution to the cross-section for proton–antiproton collisions (\({\sigma }_{p\bar{p}}\)). This became known as pomeron exchange. Since beams of antiprotons are very difficult to produce, data on \({\sigma }_{p\bar{p}}\) were scarce, but did seem to fit the idea of pomeron exchange.

In 1973, Leszek Łukaszuk and Basarab Nicolescu argued that there could, in principle, also exist a ‘crossing odd’ mechanism: one that contributes to σpp and \({\sigma }_{p\bar{p}}\) with opposite signs, and which could also grow like [log(ECM)]2, a mechanism known as odderon exchange.

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References

Original article

  • Łukaszuk, L. & Nicolescu, B. A possible interpretation of pp rising total cross-sections. Lett. Nuovo Cimento. 8, 405–413 (1973)

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Related articles

  • Abazov, V. M. et al. Odderon exchange from elastic scattering differences between pp and \(p\bar{p}\) data at 1.96 TeV and from pp forward scattering measurements. Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 062003 (2021)

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  1. Imperial College London, London, UK

    Elliot Leader

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  1. Elliot Leader
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Correspondence to Elliot Leader.

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Leader, E. Discovery of the odderon. Nat Rev Phys 3, 680 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-021-00375-6

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