Elastic scattering of hadrons outside the diffraction cone

The model-independent solution of the s-channel unitarity condition for the imaginary part of the hadronic elastic scattering amplitude outside the diffraction peak allows to make conclusions about the shape of the differential cross sections in this region. The eigensolution of the homogeneous linear integral equation and the iterative solutions of the inhomogeneous equation with different assumptions about the behavior of the overlap function and the real part of the amplitude are presented. The properties of the overlap function and of the ratio of the real-to-imaginary part of the amplitude are discussed. In particular, it is explicitly shown that the ratio changes its sign at a definite value of the transferred momentum. Some comments concerning the present day experimental results about the behavior of the differential cross section of elastic scattering outside the diffraction cone are given.