Channel-Coupling Effects in High-Energy Hadron Collisions

The Two-Gluon Model of the Pomeron predicts strongly size-dependent high-energy hadron cross sections. Yet experimental cross sections for radially excited mesons appear surprisingly close in value. The strong coupling of these mesons in hadron collisions also predicted by the model permits a qualitative understanding of this puzzling behavior in terms of eigenmode propagation with a common eigen-$\sigma$. A detailed semiempirical coupled-channel model of the Pomeron is constructed to elucidate this and other features of high-energy hadron cross sections.