# Diffractive scattering on the deuteron

## TL;DR

This paper investigates high-mass diffractive proton production on deuterons using perturbative QCD, highlighting the dominance of rearrangement contributions in the perturbative limit and their comparable significance to triple pomeron effects at realistic energies.

## Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the rearrangement and triple pomeron contributions in high-mass diffractive scattering on deuterons within the BFKL framework, including numerical estimates.

## Key findings

- Rearrangement contribution dominates as lpha_s in the perturbative limit.
- Rearrangement and triple pomeron contributions are comparable at realistic energies.
- Results depend on assumptions about pomeron behavior due to unitarization.

## Abstract

High-mass diffractive production of protons on the deuteron target is studied in the perturbative QCD in the BFKL approach. Leading order rearrangement contribution and the standard triple pomeron (the impulse approximation) are studied. In the perturbative limit $\alpha_s\to 0$ the rearrangement contribution dominates. Numerical estimates at realistic values of $\alpha_s$ and energies strongly depend on assumptions made about the behavior of the pomeron attached to the proton due to unitarization. They indicate that irrespective of these assumptions in the realistic situation the rearrangement and triple pomeron contributions turn out to be of comparable magnitude due to large dimensions of the deuteron.