Structure of High-Energy Proton-Proton Scattering

A suggestion of how to correlate the electromagnetic form factors of the proton with $p-p$ scattering is developed in detail. We postulate a new elementary local interaction of current-current form plus a diffractive term, and construct for $p-p$ scattering an approximately unitary scattering amplitude for large fixed $s$ and all values of $t$, using the Fourier-Bessel transform of the scattering amplitude. The $t$ dependence of the resulting cross section is closely correlated with the fourth power of the electromagnetic form factor of the proton, as suggested first by Wu and Yang, and agreees well with high-energy data ($E_{\mathrm{lab}}\approx 30$ BeV) over many decades in values of $\frac{d\sigma }{\mathrm{dt}}$. Differences from related models are discussed, as well as further applications and experimental implications of the theory.