New Anomalous Exchange in Regge Phenomenology and Hard Diffraction

Abstract

A new mechanism for hard diffraction based on the anomalous $f_1$ trajectory exchange, which we identify as the odd signature partner of the Pomeron, is suggested. We calculate the contribution of the $f_1$ exchange to elastic and dissociative electromagnetic production of vector mesons and show that it gives a dominant contribution to the differential cross sections at large momentum transfers.

5 pages, Latex, 4 eps figures. Talk presented at Diffraction 2000 Workshop, Centraro, Italy, September,2000. One reference replaced