Soft color exchanges and the hadronic final state

Abstract

The models for soft color interactions and color string re-interactions, implemented in the Monte Carlo program LEPTO, are investigated regarding hadronic final states in inclusive and diffractive deep inelastic scattering. The hadronic final state in inclusive and diffractive deep inelastic scattering (DIS) can give a better understanding of the interplay between soft and hard processes in QCD. Whereas hard interactions are well described by perturbative QCD, soft interactions are not calculable within perturbation theory. Instead more phenomenological models are used to transform the perturbative partonic final state into an observable hadronic final state. It is normally assumed that the color topology of an event is given by the planar approximation in perturbation theory, so that terms of order 1/N{sub c}{sup 2} are neglected, and that this topology is not altered by soft interactions.