The hard pomeron in soft data

Abstract

We show that the data for the total cross section and for the real part of the elastic amplitude indicate the presence of a hard pomeron in pi p and Kp elastic scattering at t=0, compatible with that observed in deep inelastic scattering. We show that such a hard pomeron is also compatible with pp and pbar p data, provided one unitarises it at high energy.

Comments: 13 pages, 5 figures, plain LaTeX, references added and typos removed