Elastic scattering slope and total cross section relations

The empirical equality of $\text{B}{}^2\text{σ}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>t</mtext>}}$ is noted, for the pomeron terms in NN, πN, KN, ?N, ωN, and φN scattering, where B is the elastic slope parameter and σ_t is the total cross section. This ratio increases slowly with energy, but remains the same in all channels. This is equivalent to a relation between the diffractive interaction radii and opacities; the opacity scales with the square of the radius. We conjecture that this systematics extends to ψN scattering. We contrast $\text{B}{}^2\text{σ}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>t</mtext>}}$ universaility with the slope predictions of an f-coupled pomeron model. Some other predictions of the f-dominance hypothesis are tested against data.