Testing scaling laws for the elastic scattering of protons

Theoretical proposals of scaling laws for the differential elastic scattering cross sections of protons are confronted with experimental data over a wide energy range. Different combinations of the transferred momentum and energy resulting from the solution of the definite partial differential equation are attempted as scaling variables. Reasonable scaling of the differential cross sections in the diffraction cone has been shown for one of these variables. The violation of the geometrical scaling is ascribed to the increase of the proton blackness with energy. The origin of high-t region violations of scaling laws is discussed. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.