High-Energy Nucleon Scattering and Electromagnetic Form Factors

A field-theoretic model of the exchange of virtual soft neutral vector mesons between nucleons is shown to provide the needed damping to describe $\mathrm{pp}$ elastic scattering and the electromagnetic form factors of the proton at high energies and large momentum transfers. The model permits a calculation of the infinite-energy limit of $\mathrm{pp}$ scattering, and suggests that $p\overline{p}$ scattering will rise to that limit at very high energies.