Regge Poles and Inelastic Scattering at High Energies

Abstract

The Regge pole hypothesis is applied to some inelastic processes at high energies. Particular attention is given to production of pion-nucleon resonances ${N}^{*}$ in the reaction $N+N\ensuremath{\rightarrow}N+{N}^{*}$. Data on production of the $I=\frac{1}{2}$ resonances are interpreted in terms of exchange of the "Pomeranchuk" Regge pole which is believed to be responsible for the diffraction peaks in elastic reactions, and production of the 3-3 resonance is interpreted in terms of exchange of the pion Regge pole. The prediction is obtained that production and decay of the $I=\frac{1}{2}$ resonances provides secondary pions and neutrons with energies that rise proportionally to the incident proton energy---a result of interest in connection with the secondary beams in future accelerators.