Pp elastic scattering in near forward direction at LHC and nucleon structure

We predict pp elastic differential cross section at LHC at the c.m. energy √s = 14 TeV and momentum transfer range |t| = 0 - 10 GeV², which is planned to be measured by the TOTEM group. The field theory model underlying our phenomenological investigation describes the nucleon as a composite object with an outer cloud of quark-antiquark condensate, an inner core of topological baryonic charge, and a still smaller quark-bag of valence quarks. The model satisfactorily describes the asymptotic behavior of σ_tot(s) and ρ(s) as well as the measured pp elastic dσ/dt at √s = 546 GeV, 630 GeV, and 1.8 TeV. The large |t| elastic amplitude of the model incorporates the QCD hard pomeron (BFKL Pomeron plus next to leading order approximations), the perturbative dimensional counting behavior, and the confinement of valence quarks in a small region within the nucleon. Our predicted pp elastic ds/dt at LHC is compared with those of Bourrely et al. and Desgrolard et al.