Straight-line particle path approximation for high-energy hadron scattering in quantum field theory

The asymptotic behavior of high-energy elastic and inelastic amplitudes is studied by means of the functional integration method of quantum field theory. A straight-line particle path approximation is formulated that can be used effectively to calculate the functional integrals that occur. A model of scalar nucleons interacting with a vector field is studied. Closed relativistically invariant expressions are obtained for the two-particle elastic scattering amplitudes and also for the inelastic amplitudes.