https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-020-7654-y
Regular Article - Experimental Physics
Elastic differential cross-section 
at 
and implications on the existence of a colourless C-odd three-gluon compound state
1
University of West Bohemia, Pilsen, Czech Republic
2
Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, Czech Republic
3
Czech Technical University, Prague, Czech Republic
4
Helsinki Institute of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
5
Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
6
Wigner Research Centre for Physics, RMKI, Budapest, Hungary
7
EKU KRC, Gyöngyös, Hungary
8
INFN Sezione di Bari, Bari, Italy
9
Dipartimento Interateneo di Fisica di Bari, Bari, Italy
10
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica e dell’Informazione-Politecnico di Bari, Bari, Italy
11
INFN Sezione di Genova, Genoa, Italy
12
Università degli Studi di Genova, Genoa, Italy
13
INFN Sezione di Pisa, Pisa, Italy
14
Università degli Studi di Siena and Gruppo Collegato INFN di Siena, Siena, Italy
15
AGH University of Science and Technology, Kraków, Poland
16
Tomsk State University, Tomsk, Russia
17
CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
18
Department of Physics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA
19
The University of Kansas, Lawrence, USA
20
INRNE-BAS, Institute for Nuclear Research and Nuclear Energy, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria
21
Department of Atomic Physics, ELTE University, Budapest, Hungary
22
Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation
23
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford, CA, USA
* e-mail: fnemes@cern.ch
Received:
20
August
2019
Accepted:
15
January
2020
Published online:
5
February
2020
The proton–proton elastic differential cross section has been measured by the TOTEM experiment at energy with 
beam optics. The Roman Pots were inserted to 13 times the transverse beam size from the beam, which allowed to measure the differential cross-section of elastic scattering in a range of the squared four-momentum transfer (|t|) from 0.36 to 
. The differential cross-section can be described with an exponential in the |t|-range between 0.36 and 
, followed by a diffractive minimum (dip) at 
and a subsequent maximum (bump). The ratio of the at the bump and at the dip is 
. When compared to the proton–antiproton measurement of the D0 experiment at 
, a significant difference can be observed. Under the condition that the effects due to the energy difference between TOTEM and D0 can be neglected, the result provides evidence for the exchange of a colourless C-odd three-gluon compound state in the t-channel of the proton–proton and proton–antiproton elastic scattering.
© The Author(s), 2020
