Quantum chromodynamics and the pomeron

This volume describes the Pomeron, an object of crucial importance in very high energy particle physics. The first chapter looks at historical roots, setting the scene for subsequent chapters, which focus on the derivation and study of the Pomeron that emerge within perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). A simple toy model is first used to illustrate the basic ideas behind the construction of the Pomeron and leads naturally to the more realistic case of QCD. The reggeized gluon is introduced and used to build the Pomeron of perturbative QCD. The dynamical nature of the Pomeron is then investigated. The role of the Pomeron in small-x deep inelastic scattering and in diffractive scattering is examined in detail. The volume concludes with a discussion of the color dipole approach to high energy scattering and the explicit role of unitarity corrections.