On the nature of absorption

The imaginary helicity non-flip omega exchange amplitudes in KN and NN scattering are determined versus t and s from data on elastic differential cross section differences. The omega -universality prediction Im omega /sub N/(t)= 3 Im omega /sub K/(t), is found to be satisfied for 0<or= mod t mod <or=0.5, indicating that the absorptive cuts as small t preserve universality. The impact parameter distributions of the omega amplitudes show: (i) a peripheral peak centred around b approximately=1 fm, with Delta b approximately =+or-0.5 fm in KN and Delta b approximately=+or-0.75 fm in NN; (ii) a sizeable negative contribution at small b, more negative in NN than in KN, (iii) a smaller tail of negative contributions around b approximately=2 fm. Strong absorption of the omega -pole imaginary amplitude with lambda values around two is needed to reproduced this structure. A new version of the absorption model suggested by pi N amplitude analysis, is confirmed by the results. (20 refs).