NEW UNDERSTANDING OF THE DIFFRACTIVE SCATTERING OF HADRONS AT HIGH ENERGIES: THE BLACKENING AND INCREASING EFFECTIVE INTERACTION AREA OF THE PROTON

A new structure for the high-energy diffractive scattering amplitude is derived in two complementary ways (one of them recently revealed as due to Richard Feynman). Total cross-sections increase, due to a blackening of the interaction and also due to an effect which leads to an increase in the effective interaction area at fixed opacity. These features are dynamically related to the dominant high-energy process of multiparticle production.