We discuss some phenomenological applications of an infrared finite gluon propagator characterized by a dynamically generated gluon mass. In particular we compute the effect of the dynamical gluon mass on pp and ${\bar{p}}p$ diffractive scattering. We also show how the data on gammap photoproduction and hadronic <FONT FACE=Symbol>gg</FONT> reactions can be derived from the pp and ${\bar{p}}p$ forward scattering amplitudes by assuming vector meson dominance and the additive quark model.

Making use of the extrema bounds for the soft pomeron intercept, recently determined by fits to pp and <img id="_x0000_i1026" src="../../img/revistas/bjp/v34n1a/a25img08.gif" align=absbottom>data (from both accelerator and cosmic-ray experiments), we investigate the total cross sections for pion-proton, kaon-proton, gamma-proton and gamma-gamma scattering. We show that by means of global fits, the extrema bounds are in agreement with the bulk of experimental data presently available, and that extrapolations to higher energies indicate different behaviors for the rise of the total cross sections. We also discuss factorization and quark counting, showing that both bounds are in agreement with these properties.

We present the results of several parametrizations to two different ensemble of data on pp total cross sections (<FONT FACE=Symbol>s<img SRC="http:/img/fbpe/bjp/v31n4/07eq01.gif" ></FONT>) at the highest center-of-mass energies (including cosmic-ray information). The results are statistically consistent with two distinct scenarios at high energies. From one ensemble the prediction for the LHC (<img SRC="http:/img/fbpe/bjp/v31n4/07eq02.gif"> = 14 TeV) is<FONT FACE=Symbol>s<img SRC="http:/img/fbpe/bjp/v31n4/07eq01.gif" ></FONT> = 113 ± 5 mb and from the other, <FONT FACE=Symbol>s<img SRC="http:/img/fbpe/bjp/v31n4/07eq01.gif"></FONT> = 140 ± 7 mb. From each parametrization, and making use of derivative analyticity relations (DAR), we determine rho(s) (ratio between the forward real and imaginary parts of the elastic scattering amplitude). A discussion on the optimization of the DAR in terms of a free parameter is also presented. In all cases good descriptions of the experimental data are obtained.