Diffractive limit approach to elastic scattering and inelastic diffraction of high-energy hadrons

An approach to inelastic diffraction based on the concept of equivalence of diffractive states is developed. In the classical description of Good and Walker, the inelastic diffraction originates from the diversity of elastic scattering amplitudes in the initial and final state Delta t. We consider a multichannel correction, accounting for intermediate transitions inside the equivalence class. This correction can be factorized yielding the diffraction amplitude in the form N Delta t, to be taken in the ''diffractive limit'' N-->infinity, Delta t-->0 such that N Delta t is finite. We analyze elastic scattering and the inclusive inelastic diffraction cross sections for p-p and p-(p) over bar collisions, in the range of c.m. energy root s=20-1800 GeV. We claim that the angular distribution of the inclusive inelastic diffraction at small momentum transfers is determined by elastic scattering in the transition region between the forward peak and the minimum. This is successfully verified in experiment. The detailed comparison with the Good-Walker description, with emphasis on the advantages of our approach, is presented.