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The total pp cross section is a fundamental property of the strong interaction which can not be calculated in perturbative QCD but only described based on phenomenological models.
The ATLAS collaboration has explored the total proton-proton cross section, using measurements of the total inelastic proton-proton cross sections and of the diffractive part of the inelastic cross section in special data sets taken with low beam currents. The measurements have been performed at center of mass energies of 7 TeV and 13 TeV, using forward scintillators.
The total pp cross section can also be extracted from a measurement of the differential elastic cross section using the optical theorem. The ATLAS Collaboration has performed this measurement in dedicated runs with high beta* optics at 7 and 8 TeV centre-of-mass energy with the ALFA Roman Pot detector. In addition, the nuclear slope of the elastic t-spectrum and the total elastic and inelastic cross sections are determined.