Semi-transparent hadrons from multi-channel absorption effects

We analyze the absorption structure of diffractive dissociation discussing simultaneously the elastic and inelastic processes. This approach is motivated by their close interdependence and mutual influence. We show that the results differ significantly from the standard picture of elastic scattering. In particular, protons are shown to have very rich internal structure coupling both to “black” and “transparent” diffractive scattering eigenstates. Proton matter distribution may well be very different from that suggested by the analysis of Chou and Yang. Finally, the indicated asymptotic behaviour is that of a “grey” instead of a “black” disc limit.