Phenomenological Regge trajectories in direct channel pion-proton elastic scattering

This dissertation describes an investigation of the possibility of using a direct channel Regge pole theory to describe low energy scattering data. The model amplitude which is derived is similar to the modified Regge representation proposed by Mukherjee but is different in two important respects: (a) The Mukherjee representation does not apply to a process in which the particles may have spin whereas the one presented here applies to the helicity amplitudes of the general Jacob-Wick expansion. (b) The Reggeization of a signature helicity amplitude does not lead to a signatured model except in the spinless case. It is shown how to insure the preservation of signature by including an appropriate part of the background integral. A preliminary numerical investigation of the pion-proton elastic scattering process is discussed and it is found that there is soem likelihood of the success of a more extensive numerical study. (author)