Narrow Results

At high energies the Pomeron plays a crucial part in describing the soft interactions. In the light of LHC (Large Hadron Collider) data we perform a detailed analysis of proton-proton ($pp$) and antiproton-proton ($\bar{p}p$) forward scattering data in order to determine the intercept and the slope of the soft Pomeron trajectory. This analysis is performed based on Regge theory using Born-level amplitudes. We investigate the role of the proton-Pomeron vertex form and of the nearest $t$-channel singularity. We give predictions for the total cross section and the ratio of the real part to the imaginary part of the elastic amplitude in $pp$ collisions at LHC and cosmic-ray energies.