ANALYTIC MULTI-REGGE THEORY AND THE POMERON IN QCD I: THE SUPER-CRITICAL POMERON

Abstract

The formalism of analytic multi-Regge theory is developed as a basis for the study of abstract critical and super-critical pomeron high-energy behavior and for related studies of the Regge behavior of spontaneously broken gauge theories and the pomeron in QCD. Asymptotic domains of analyticity for multiparticle amplitudes are shown to follow from properties of field theory and S-matrix theory. General asymptotic dispersion relations are then derived for such amplitudes in which the spectral components are described by the graphical formalism of hexagraphs. Further consequences are distinct Sommerfeld-Watson representations for each hexagraph spectral component, together with a complete set of angular momentum plane unitarity equations which control the form of all multi-Regge amplitudes. Because of this constraint of “reggeon unitarity” the critical pomeron solution of the reggeon field theory gives the only known “non-trivial” unitary high-energy S-matrix. By exploiting the full structure of multi-Regge amplitudes as the pomeron becomes super-critical, one can study the simultaneous modification of hadrons and the pomeron. The result is a completely consistent description of the super-critical pomeron appearing in hadron scattering. Reggeon unitarity is satisfied in the super-critical phase by the appearance of a massive “gluon” (Reggeized vector particle) coupling pair-wise to the pomeron.