Diffractive Deep Inelastic Scattering in the Dipole Picture at Next-to-Leading Order

TL;DR

This paper computes the $q ar q g$ contribution to diffractive deep inelastic scattering at NLO using the dipole picture, providing finite cross sections and insights into high-$Q^2$ behavior within the CGC framework.

Contribution

It presents the first finite NLO calculation of the $q ar q g$ contribution to diffractive structure functions in the dipole model with exact kinematics.

Findings

Finite $q ar q g$ cross section obtained at NLO.

High-$Q^2$ and large-$M_X^2$ behavior matches known limits.

Framework for full NLO structure function calculations discussed.

Abstract

We calculate the contribution from the $q \bar q g$ state production to the diffractive cross sections in deep inelastic scattering at high energy. The obtained cross section is finite by itself, and consists a part of the full next-to-leading order result for the diffractive structure functions. Our calculation for the diffractive structure functions is performed using exact kinematics, under the shockwave approximation of the scattering process. Once the calculation is completed, we show that the previously known behaviour at the high-$Q^2$ and large-$M_X^2$ regime can be extracted from our results by taking the appropriate limits. Furthermore, we discuss the steps required to obtain the complete next-to-leading order results for the structure functions in the color glass condensate (CGC) formalism, and the application of these results to phenomenology.