Unified Picture of Proton-Proton Elastic Scattering at All Angles from 3 to 24 GeV/c

We have investigated $\mathrm{pp}$ elastic scattering on the basis of smooth distributions for the helicity-nonflip and -flip amplitudes in the impact parameter $b$. We show how these distributions change with energy. We give interpretations for the shrinkage of the forward diffraction peak, the break in $\frac{d\sigma }{\mathrm{dt}}$ at $\mathrm{}\left|t\right|\mathrm{}\approx 1$ ${(\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}/\mathit{c})}^2$, and the observed pronounced structure in the $\mathrm{pp}$ polarization.