Measurement of Diffractive Scattering of Photons with Large Momentum Transfer at HERA

TL;DR

This paper reports the first measurement of diffractive scattering of quasi-real photons with large momentum transfer at HERA, comparing experimental results with QCD models.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental data on this process and tests perturbative QCD predictions at high momentum transfer.

Findings

W dependence matches BFKL model predictions

|t| dependence is harder than theoretical expectations

First measurement of this diffractive scattering process

Abstract

The first measurement of diffractive scattering of quasi-real photons with large momentum transfer is made using the H1 detector at HERA. Single differential cross sections are measured as a function of W, the incident photon-proton centre of mass energy, and t, the square of the four-momentum transferred at the proton vertex. The W dependence is well described by a perturbative QCD model using a leading logarithmic approximation of the BFKL evolution, whereas the measured |t| dependence is harder than predicted.