High energy scattering in the Regge limit

Abstract

This thesis comprises two investigations, both connected with the attempt to understand Regge theory in the framework of QCD. The first is about how the odderon, a Reggeon carrying no charge which is odd under charge conjugation, couples to the proton. The second concerns unitarity corrections to the BFKL equation which describes the pomeron, a Reggeon with the quantum numbers of the vacuum. In the first part of this thesis, the odderon exchange contribution to elastic proton-proton and proton-antiproton scattering is computed. A geometrical transverse-space model of the proton is constructed to investigate the influence of a possible diquark cluster in the proton on the odderon-proton coupling. The average size of this cluster is determined by comparison with experimental data. Furthermore, the validity of two odderon-proton impact factors from the literature is tested. The second part consists in the derivation of four-pomeron vertices. These vertices occur in the Generalised Leading Logarithmic Approximation used to unitarise scattering amplitudes describing the exchange of a perturbative pomeron. A number of basic functions of which such pomeron vertices are composed is treated systematically in momentum and position space. Their conformal transformation properties in impact parameter space are derived. The vertices are expressed as a number of integrals and cast into the form of conformally invariant four-point functions.