Regge trajectories and the principle of maximum strength for strong interactions

In previous publications, the authors have discussed the possibility that strong interactions "saturate" the unitarity condition; i.e., that they have the maximum possible strength consistent with the unitarity and analyticity of the S matrix.(1) Our earlier discussion was confined to elastic scattering, however, and although the conjectured existence of Regge poles underlay our arguments, we did not at the time of the earlier work appreciate certain essential properties of these poles.