Colour Dipole Phenomenology

Abstract

Recent, precise HERA data are analysed in the context of colour dipole models, both with and without gluon saturation. The data on the deep inelastic structure function F2 seem to prefer parameterisations which include saturation effects. That is they indicate that the strong rise with energy of the dipole cross-section, which holds for small dipoles, pertains only for r r s ( x ) where r s ( x ) decreases monotonically as x decreases. The corresponding predictions for the diffractive structure function F 2 D ( 3 ) also hint at saturation, although the data are not accurate enough to be decisive.