Polarized nucleon-nucleon scattering from 3 to 12 GeV/c: What can be inferred from the experiments?

Abstract

An analysis of polarized elastic nucleon-nucleon scattering data from 3 to 12 GeV/c laboratory momenta is done in a quite general framework. Most of the previous analyses are found to give incomplete answers. In particular, the application of naive perturbative quantum chromodynamics at these energies can be dismissed. Our analysis favors instead a mechanism in which correlations between the quarks are important. Direct extrapolations of the parametrization to immediately higher energies are given.