Excitation functions of proton-proton elastic scattering at intermediate energies

Excitation functions of proton-proton elastic cross sections have been measured in narrow momentum steps Δp = 28 MeV/c in the kinetic energy range from 0.5 to 2.5 GeV and the angular range 35° ≤ Θcm ≤ 90° with a detector providing ΔΘcm ≈ 1.4° resolution and 82% solid angle coverage. Measurements have been performed continuously during projectile acceleration in the Cooler Synchrotron COSY with an internal CH2 fiber target; background corrections were derived from measurements with a carbon fiber target and from Monte Carlo simulations of inelastic pp contributions. Particular care was taken to monitor the luminosity as a function of beam energy. The results provide excitation functions and angular distributions of unprecedented precision and internal consistency. The measured cross sections are compared to recent phase shift analyses, and their impact on the present solution SM97 [1] is discussed.