Structure of the inelastic overlap function for $\pi$p collisions in a diffraction dissociation model

Modified nova models of diffraction dissociation, including growing spin values of the fireballs and specific helicity structures of the amplitudes, are used to analyse the inelastic overlap function F(s, t) for pi p collisions at s=10, 30, 50 (GeV/c)/sup 2/. The effect of the spins on the small- mod t mod slope of F(s, t) is found to be large. With reasonable parameters and the assumption of t-channel helicity conservation these spin effects enable the model to reproduce the slope of F(s, t) as calculated from the general optical theorem and the knowledge of elastic scattering. (18 refs).