Examining the scaling behavior of Delbruck scattering in experimental data

The conventional perception is that the amplitudes of Delbruck scattering calculated to all orders in the charge number Z of the target nucleus should exhibit a scaling behavior at high energies. To examine this hypothesis the available experimental data of differential cross sections of elastic scattering in the energy range between 140 MeV and 7.11 GeV are analyzed. It is found that the experimental data do not show scaling characteristics. Such a finding, though apparently against the standard notion, is not unexpected because at high energies Delbruck scattering is in very forward direction and the theoretical arguments demand that to observe scaling, not only the energy itself but the product of scattering angles and energy also should be very large.