A perturbative treatment of double gluon exchange in gamma*-proton DIS

Abstract

A new model for the exchange of two gluons between the virtual photon and the proton, in non-diffractive deeply inelastic electron-proton scattering, is developed and studied. This model relies on a perturbative calculation, previously applied to diffraction, and a general result from Regge theory. As a first application of the model, we study corrections to the momentum transfer to the quark-anti-quark pair, at the photon-vertex. We find a significant enhancement of the cross-section at ~Q^2 momentum transfers, and large negative corrections for small momentum transfers. The implication of this result for jet-distributions measured at HERA, is discussed.

Comments: 33 pages, 13 figures. Revised and resubmitted to Nuclear Physics B: Section 2 is rewritten and a comparison to the GBW-model is added