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# Light meson radial Regge trajectories

## I Introduction

Recently a number of radially excited mesons have been experimentally observed ref.1 -ref.4  and it was discovered that for excitations like $`a_J(2P)`$, $`\omega _3(2D)`$, and $`\rho (2D)`$ their masses are 100-200 MeV lower than the theoretical predictions in different models, in particular in the relativized potential model (RPM)ref.5  and in the flux tube model ref.6 . A $`K`$-matrix analysis of the Crystal Barrel data has shown that the Regge trajectories as a function of the radial quantum number $`n_r`$ continue to be linear up to high excitations like the four $`L`$ states ($`n_r=0,1,2,3`$) and can be described by the $`n_r`$-trajectory (the radial Regge trajectory) ref.3 :

$$M^2(n_r,L)=M^2(0,L)+\mathrm{\Omega }_Ln_r(\mathrm{fixed}L)$$
(1)
where the slope $`\mathrm{\Omega }_L`$ was found to vary in the narrow range $`1.15\mathrm{\Omega }1.30`$ GeV2 for different $`L`$-wave states.

In Ref. ref.7  the orbital excitations of the light mesons $`(n_r=0,L5)`$ were studied in detail in the framework of the QCD string approachref.8  and the spin-averaged meson masses $`\overline{M}(nL)`$, the Regge slope $`\alpha _L^{}`$, and the intercept $`\alpha _L(0)`$ were calculated analytically and expressed through a single parameter, the string tension $`\sigma `$, while the Regge intercept $`\alpha _L(0)`$ does not depend on $`\sigma `$ and is a universal number. The calculated values of $`\overline{M}(nL)`$, $`\alpha _L^{}`$, and $`\alpha _L(0)`$ turn out to be in very good agreement with the experimental data. (Note our notation: a state denoted by $`nL`$ has radial quantum number $`n_r=n1`$, so the lowest state with a given angular momentum $`L`$ is $`1L`$ and has $`n_r=0`$.)

The situation appears to be different for the radial excitations (called also radials in what follows) calculated also for the linear string potential (or the linear plus Coulomb potential) with the same string tension. Thus the masses of the radials obtained do lie on a linear trajectory Eq. (1) which has a slope that is practically independent of $`L`$, but its value $`\mathrm{\Omega }_02.0`$ GeV2 appears to be a factor 1.6 - 1.5 larger than $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$(exp), the value extracted from the experimental data ref.3  (see Sect. 2). In particular, the masses of the second radial excitations (and even some first ones like $`2D`$ and $`2F`$) are 100-150 MeV $`(n_r=2)`$ (50 - 100 MeV for $`n_r=1`$) higher than $`M`$(exp) from Refs. ref.1  \- ref.4 .

This phenomenon, the lowering of the masses of the radials, was already discussed in Refs. ref.9  and ref.10  where it was supposed that this effect is connected with the opening of new channels, i.e. with hadronic shifts. However, hadronic shifts cannot produce the global, quantum-number independent shift down of all radials on the $`n_r`$-trajectory having been observed in experiment. In particular it cannot provide almost the same slope $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ in Eq. (1) for different $`L`$, since hadronic shifts strongly depend on the quantum numbers of a decay channel, the closeness to the decay thresholds, the widths, and many other specific features of meson decays ref.11 .

Thus a basic paradox of mesonic spectra is that there are highly excited meson states with large width, implying strong coupling to decay channels, which nevertheless lie on linear Regge trajectories. This situation implies that first, the string between a quark and an antiquark continues to exist up to large energy excitations and can be as large as $`2.52.8`$ fm (see below). Secondly, quark pair creation does not dominate for such excitations, in particular the probability of string breaking is not large. How to reconcile these conclusions with strong decays (large width) of the Regge-string mesons? One can argue that pair creation is suppressed as $`1/N_c`$ at large $`N_c`$. Moreover, in experiment this parameter appears to be 1/10 rather than 1/3 for $`N_c=3`$ which can be seen in the width to mass ratio for large excitations. The present paper suggests at least a partial answer to these questions taking as a characteristic example the radially excited mesons and generalizing to all highly excited light mesons which serve as a good illustration to the paradox stated above.

So, to explain the “global correlated shift down” of the radial excitations we suggest here an alternative physical picture, which in first turn takes into account the behavior of the string in highly excited hadrons, and in addition the specific character of the $`\pi `$-meson interaction with a light quark (antiquark) and the string connecting them.

In contrast to hadronic decays like $`\rho \rho `$, $`\rho a_0`$, $`\omega \omega `$ etc., which may occur due to $`q\overline{q}`$ loop creation inside the string’s world sheet and subsequent string breaking, the $`\pi `$-meson, as well as other Goldstone particles, locally interacts with a quark (antiquark) sitting at the end of the string ref.12  and therefore the string may not break due to the emission of a $`\pi `$-meson from a quark.

The same statement is true when the creation of a $`\pi `$-meson is accompanied by a $`\rho `$, $`a_0`$ or $`f_0`$ meson, since these mesons are actually described by the remaining string in the final state. Therefore it is natural to assume that below the threshold of $`\rho \rho `$, ($`\omega \omega `$ etc.), i.e.

$$E_{\mathrm{thr}}2M_\rho \pm \mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho 1.4\mathrm{GeV}$$
(2)
the string effectively stays intact. When only channels like $`(n\pi )\pi `$, $`(n\pi )\eta `$, $`\pi \rho `$, $`\eta \rho `$ etc. are open, we argue that the string between a light quark and antiquark is not modified by open channels and has the same string tension $`\sigma _00.18`$ GeV2 as the string between a static quark $`Q`$ and antiquark $`\overline{Q}`$. Then one can determine the characteristic size of the string $`R_1`$ which corresponds to the value $`E_{\mathrm{thr}}1.4`$ GeV:

$$\sigma _0R_1E_{\mathrm{thr}},\mathrm{or}R_11.4\mathrm{GeV}/\sigma _0=1.45\mathrm{fm}.$$
(3)
Thus our first assumption here is that up to distances $`1.4`$ fm the string potential is not distorted by meson decays. This statement is in agreement with lattice calculations where in the presence of dynamical fermions the static potential appears to be the same as in the quenched approximation up to the separations of order $`1.21.5`$ fm ref.13 , ref.14 .

For higher excitations, $`E^{}E_{\mathrm{thr}}`$, the $`q\overline{q}`$ pair creation inside the world sheet (with the quantum numbers $`{}_{}{}^{3}S_{1}^{}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{3}P_{0}^{}`$) is already possible and at first sight the problem is becoming essentially a two- or many-channel problem. However, we shall assume and argue here (see Section III) that up to very high excitations, $`E_{\mathrm{cr}}`$ 2.5 GeV, i.e. in the range

$$1.4\mathrm{GeV}E^{}E_{\mathrm{cr}}2.5\mathrm{GeV}$$
(4)
and for the time extensions $`\delta T1/\mathrm{\Gamma }1.0`$ fm, only virtual loops or loops of small sizes are created. As a result the probability of hadronic decays like $`M\rho \rho `$, $`\omega \omega `$, is small while with a large probability the string remains unbroken. This assumption is necessary to explain the linear character of the $`n_r`$-trajectories Eq. (1) up to high excitations of the order of 2.5 GeV.

However, in the presence of such virtual or small $`q\overline{q}`$ loops the string tension is renormalized and becomes dependent on the separation $`r`$. In the suggested picture (when at small $`r`$, $`rR_1`$, $`\sigma =constant=\sigma _0`$) the attenuation of the string tension is being felt only at distances $`rR_1`$ and continues at least up to the value, $`R_22.5`$ fm with $`\sigma (R_2)=\sigma _2`$. It is important that this “asymptotic” value $`\sigma _2`$ strongly affects the slope $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ of the $`n_r`$-trajectory given in Eq. (1).

The most important feature of this picture is the existence of a prehadronization stage in the range of string parameters,

$$R_11.4\mathrm{fm}rR_22.5\mathrm{fm},TT_{cr}1.0\mathrm{fm},$$
(5)
where the string tension depends on $`r`$ while at the same time the string with large probability remains unbroken. The dynamics in this prehadronization region can be effectively described in the one-channel approximation taking into account virtual quark loops and the open hadronic channels (mostly like $`(n\pi )\pi `$, $`\pi \rho `$, $`\eta \rho `$ etc.) through a universal dependence of the string tension on $`r`$:

$`\sigma `$ $`=`$ $`constant=\sigma _0,rR_1,`$
$`\sigma `$ $`=`$ $`\sigma (r)\text{ }R_1rR_2`$ (6)
At the present stage of the theory the function $`\sigma (r)`$ is not yet calculated in full QCD and therefore we formulate here the problem in a different way: how to extract information about $`\sigma (r)`$, or the string breaking, from highly excited meson masses, in particular from the slope of the radial Regge trajectories.

We shall show here that there exists a direct connection between the slope $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and the two most important features of $`\sigma (r)`$: the value of $`R_1`$ where the string tension is becoming $`r`$-dependent, and the value $`\sigma _2`$ which characterizes the string tension in the region where breaking is already possible. In lattice calculations a flattening of the static potential due to $`q\overline{q}`$ pair creation at $`r1.21.5`$ fm seems to be observed ref.14 , unfortunately, lattice points have very large errors and at present definite conclusions about the exact value and form of the static potential at large $`r`$ cannot be derived from lattice measurements.

We concentrate below on these considerations and suggest a workable and simple model for the mesons of large size, both radial and orbital ones, which yields meson masses in good agreement with experiment. It will be shown that in the proposed picture the linear $`n_r`$-trajectories with a rather small slope, $`\mathrm{\Omega }1.3`$ GeV2 ($`1.5`$ GeV2 for the spin averaged $`S`$-wave states) close to the experimental numbers, can be easily obtained.

The plan of the paper is as follows. In Section II the analytic formulas for the Regge slope and the intercept for the linear potential are derived and the masses will be expressed through a single scale parameter - the string tension. It will be shown that for the standard linear potential the slope $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ is a factor 1.6 larger than in experiment. In Section III the effects of $`q\overline{q}`$-pair creation (unquenched situation) on the meson masses of large radii are discussed and in Section IV a modified nonperturbative potential is proposed for which the meson masses are calculated. In Section V the Regge slope and intercept of the $`n_r`$-trajectories are presented. In section VI our Conclusions and some prospectives are briefly discussed. In the Appendix the results of the detailed calculations for the meson spectra are included.

## II The problem of high excitations for the linear potential

In the QCD string approach the Hamiltonian is derived from QCD under definite and verifyable assumptions. First, the times and distances involved are considered to be larger than the gluonic correlation length $`T_g`$: $`rT_g`$ ($`T_g0.2`$ fm in lattice calculations ref.15 ). This condition is always valid for the light mesons having large sizes $`R0.8`$ fm. Secondly, the string (hybrid) excitation scale is large, $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_{\mathrm{str}}1`$ GeV, and therefore in first approximation the meson and hybrid excitations are disconnected.

Then the spin-averaged mass $`\overline{M}(nL)`$ of the light meson with arbitrary quantum numbers $`nL`$ ($`L5`$)are determined by the following mass formula ref.7 ; ref.8 :

$$\overline{M}(nL)=M_0(nL)+\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{str}}(nL)+\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{SE}}(nL)$$
(7)
where $`M_0`$ is the eigenvalue of the unperturbed string Hamiltonian $`H_R^1`$ coinciding with the spinless Salpeter equation (SSE):

$$\left(2\sqrt{\stackrel{}{p}^2+m^2}+V(r)\right)\psi (nL)=M_0(nL)\psi (nL),$$
(8)
where $`m`$ is the current quark mass taken here to be equal to zero ($`m=0`$). The potential $`V(r)`$ contains in the general case both a perturbative part, the Coulomb interaction $`V_C(r)`$, and the nonperturbative string potential $`V_{\mathrm{NP}}(r)`$ with a string tension that is in general dependent on the separation $`r`$ ref.7 :

$$V(r)=\frac{4\alpha _s}{3r}+\sigma (r)r.$$
(9)
It is instructive to consider first a linear potential with $`\sigma =constant=\sigma _0`$ with a mass formula that is more transparent and can be presented in analytical form. In this case the string correction was defined in ref.7 ; ref.16 :

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{str}}(nL)={\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _0<r^1>L(L+1)}{8\mu _0^2(nL)}}={\displaystyle \frac{2\sigma _0<r^1>L(L+1)}{M_0^2(nL)}},`$ (10)
where the following relations valid for the potential $`\sigma _0r`$ are used:

$$M_0(nL)=4\mu _0(nL),\sigma _0r=2\mu _0(nL).$$
(11)
The constituent mass $`\mu _0(nL)`$ was derived to be the average of the quark kinetic energy operator ref.7 ,ref.8 :

$$\mu _0(nL)=\sqrt{\stackrel{}{p}^2+m^2}_{nL}.$$
(12)
From the definition Eq. (12) it is clear that $`\mu _0`$ depends on the quantum numbers $`nL`$ of a given state and can be expected to grow for high excitations.

An important contribution to the meson mass Eq. (7) comes from the nonperturbative self-energy term $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{SE}}(nL)`$ calculated in Ref. ref.17 :

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{SE}}(nL)=\frac{4\sigma _0\eta (f)}{\pi \mu _0}=\frac{16\sigma _0\eta (f)}{\pi M_0(nL)},$$
(13)
where the parameter $`\eta (f)`$ depends on the quark flavor $`f`$ and can be calculated, see Ref. ref.17 :

$$\eta (n\overline{n})=0.90$$
(14)
Here it is worth to notice that the Coulomb corrections $`E_C(nL)`$ to the light meson masses are small, $`|E_C|100`$ MeV and can be neglected in the first approximation. The results of the exact calculations for a linear plus Coulomb potential Eq. (9) will be presented in Section IV and in the Appendix.

The self-energy term enters the squared mass $`\overline{M}^2`$ in such a way that it gives rise to an important negative constant $`C_0`$,

$$C_0=\frac{32\eta \sigma _0}{\pi }$$
(15)
so that the mass formula for the squared meson mass is

$$\overline{M}^2(nL)=M_0^2\frac{4\sigma _0<r^1>L(L+1)}{M_0}\frac{32\eta \sigma _0}{\pi }+\frac{256\sigma _0^2\eta ^2}{\pi ^2M_0^2},$$
(16)
i.e. it is proportional to $`\sigma `$ and does not contain any free parameter. In Eq. (16) the contributions of the small terms $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{str}}^2`$ and $`2\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{str}}\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{SE}}`$ were neglected to show the most important features of the meson spectra. On the contrary the term $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{SE}}^20.10`$ GeV2 is not small for any state and therefore is kept in the mass formula (16).

An important next step refers to the approximation for the eigenvalues $`M_0^2(nL)`$ of the SSE valid for the linear potential $`\sigma _0r`$ :

$$M_0^2(\mathrm{approx})=[8L+4\pi \xi (nL)n_r+3\pi ]\sigma _0.$$
(17)
This formula with $`\xi =1.0`$ reproduces the exact values of $`M_0^2(nL)`$ with an accuracy better than 2% for all $`nL`$-states with the exception of the $`1S`$ and $`1P`$ states where the accuracy is 3-6% ref.7 . In Eq. (17) the coefficient $`\xi (nL)1.0`$ weakly depends on $`L`$ and slightly decreases with growing $`n_r`$, e.g. for the $`4S`$ state $`\xi (4S)=0.99`$ while $`\xi (4F)=0.96`$. In what follows in most cases we put $`\xi (nL)=1.0`$.

Then with the use of the expression (17) and redefining the matrix element $`<r^1>=\sqrt{\sigma _0}<\rho ^1>`$ where $`<\rho ^1>`$ is already independent of $`\sigma _0`$, one can rewrite the mass formula Eq. (16) in the following way,

$$\overline{M}^2(nL)=(\alpha _L^{})^1L+[4\pi n_r+b(nL)]\sigma _0$$
(18)
giving for the $`L`$-trajectory,

$$L=\alpha _L^{}\overline{M}^2(nL)+\alpha _L(n),$$
(19)
the Regge slope (in general $`n_r0`$):

$$(\alpha _L^{})^1=\sigma _0[8\delta (nL)]\sigma _0\left[8\frac{\sqrt{2}<\rho ^1>(L+1)}{\sqrt{L+\frac{\pi n_r}{2}+\frac{3\pi }{8}}}\right].$$
(20)
For the leading $`L`$-trajectory ($`<\rho ^1>\sqrt{L+1}`$ constant) the slope is given by the constant ref.7

$$(\alpha _L^{})^1=(6.95\pm 0.02)\sigma _0$$

or

$$\alpha _L^{}=\frac{1}{6.95\sigma _0}=0.80\mathrm{GeV}^2\mathrm{for}\sigma _0=0.18\mathrm{GeV}^2,$$
(21)
which is in good agreement with the experimental value $`\alpha _L^{}(\mathrm{exp})=0.81\pm 0.02`$ GeV-2. For the orbital excitations with a fixed $`n_r>0`$, $`\alpha _L^{}(n_r)`$ appears to be a bit smaller since for them $`\delta (nL)`$ in Eq. (20) is smaller, e.g. $`\delta (n_r=1)=0.85\pm 0.05`$ and $`\delta (n_r=3)0.50`$ while $`\delta (n_r=0)=1.05`$. Then for $`\sigma _0=0.18`$ GeV2

$`\alpha _L^{}(n_r=1)`$ $`=`$ $`1/[7.2\sigma _0]=0.77\mathrm{GeV}^2,`$
$`\alpha _L^{}(n_r=3)`$ $`=`$ $`1/[7.5\sigma _0]=0.74\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ (22)
However, this slope gives larger values for the radial excitations, e.g. $`\overline{M}(2P)=1.82\pm 0.03`$ GeV while the expected experimental number is $`\overline{M}(2P)1.701.75`$ GeV ref.2 , ref.3 .

From Eq. (16) it follows that the constant $`b(nL)`$ in Eq. (18) is

$$b(nL)=3\pi \frac{32\eta }{\pi }+\frac{32\eta ^2}{\pi ^2(L+\frac{\pi n_r}{2}+\frac{3\pi }{8})}.$$
(23)
As was stressed in Ref. ref.7 , for the $`b(1S)`$ meson it is more precise to use the exact eigenvalue with $`M_0^2(1S)=9.967\sigma _0`$ instead of the approximation (17) so that for the leading $`L`$-trajectory ($`\eta =0.90`$) one finds

$`b(1S)`$ $`=`$ $`3\pi {\displaystyle \frac{32\eta }{\pi }}+{\displaystyle \frac{256\eta ^2\sigma _0}{\pi ^2M_0^2}},`$ (24)
$`=`$ $`0.257+{\displaystyle \frac{256\eta ^2}{9.967\pi ^2}}=2.365.`$
Then from the mass formula (18) the intercept of the leading $`L`$-trajectory,

$`\alpha _L(\overline{M}^2=0)=\alpha _L^{}b(1S)\sigma _0=2.365/6.95=0.34,`$ (25)
does not depend on the string tension and is a universal number. With 10% accuracy it coincides with the experimental number $`\alpha _L(0)_{\mathrm{exp}}=0.30\pm 0.02`$ ref.7 .

For $`n_r0`$ the intercept of the $`L`$-trajectory is

$`\alpha _L(n_r,\overline{M}^2=0)`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha _L^{}(n_r)[4\pi n_r+b(nL)]\sigma _0`$ (26)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{0.257+\frac{2.626}{L+\pi n_r/2+3\pi /8}+4\pi n_r}{8\delta (nL)}}(n_r0).`$
In the intercept (26) the term $`b(nL)`$ is small as compared to $`4\pi n`$ (the largest correction is for the $`S`$-wave states but even then it is $`10\%`$) and can be neglected in first approximation. Then also neglecting $`\delta (nL)`$ compared to 8 one obtains

$$\alpha _L(n_r)\frac{\pi n_r}{2},$$
(27)
which does not depend on $`L`$ and $`\sigma _0`$. For the neighbouring intercepts the difference is equal to the following constant,

$$\alpha _L(n_r+1)\alpha _L(n_r)=\pi /2=1.57.$$
(28)
The magnitude of the intercept is rather large due to the presence of the large number $`4\pi n_r\sigma _0`$ in the eigenvalue $`M_0^2(nL)`$ (or $`\overline{M}^2`$ (18)). Note that another large number, $`3\pi \sigma _0`$, which is present in $`M_0^2(nL)`$, is practically cancelled by the constant $`C_0`$, Eq. (15), coming from the self-energy contribution. Now one can present the masses of the radials in the form of the $`n_r`$-trajectory Eq. (1):

$$\overline{M}^2(n_r,L)=M^2(0,L)+\mathrm{\Omega }_0n_r(L\mathrm{fixed}),$$
(29)
where from the mass formula (16) one finds for the linear potential the following expression for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_0=[4\pi \sigma _0\xi (nL)][1\chi (nL)]1.902.10\mathrm{GeV}^2\mathrm{for}\sigma _0=0.18\mathrm{GeV}^2.$$
(30)
($`\chi (nL)=(b(nL)b(n+1L))/4\pi `$)

In Eq. (30) $`0.95\xi (nL)1.05`$ and $`0.05\chi 0.10`$ for all $`nL`$ states ($`n_r4,L4`$) so that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ is only 5%-10% smaller than $`4\pi \sigma _0`$.

Thus for the linear potential we have obtained
(i) The masses of the radials lie on linear $`n_r`$-trajectories as in Eq. (1);
(ii) The slope $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ does not depend on $`L`$ (with 95% accuracy) in agreement with experimental observations;
(iii) However, numerically the value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ turns out to be $`1.6`$ times larger than the value extracted from the experimental data ref.3 .

To explain this phenomenon we suggest below a physical mechanism which can be applied to highly excited mesons.

## III Meson masses and quark pair creation

The effective Hamiltonian derived from the QCD Lagrangian with the use of the Fock-Feynman-Schwinger representationref.18  is based on the quenched approximation, where the quark determinant is replaced by unity. Based on the width-to-mass ratio and on the existence of linear Regge trajectories for the mesons it is usually argued that the effects of the sea quark loops coming from the quark determinant cannot be large and are estimated to be around 10%. The same estimate of this correction is obtained from lattice calculations for the unquenched low-lying hadronsref.19 . Moreover, lattice calculations of the $`Q\overline{Q}`$ static potential up to $`1.01.5`$ fm do not show a significant difference between quenched and unquenched calculations ref.13 -ref.20 .

It can be shown that the radial excitations and high orbital excitations ($`L4`$) have sizes exceeding 1.5 fm (see Table 1) and therefore one should reconsider possible effects of quark loops on the large-size mesons. A dedicated study on the lattice ref.14  shows a flattening of the static potential or decreasing of the string tension at separations $`r>1`$ fm. However, at present lattice points have large errors at such distances, quickly deteriorating with increasing $`r`$ and one cannot extract the exact form of the static potential at large $`r`$ from lattice data.

Above the threshold of $`q\overline{q}`$ pair creation the static $`Q\overline{Q}`$ pair could decay into two heavy-light mesons with mass $`M_{\mathrm{HL}}=2m_Q+2E_{\mathrm{HL}}`$ where $`E_{\mathrm{HL}}`$ is the excitation energy of the heavy-light meson which can be calculated in the framework of the formalism presented in Ref. ref.21  and is found to be $`E_{\mathrm{HL}}(\alpha _s=0)=0.73`$ GeV and $`E_{\mathrm{HL}}(\alpha _s=0.39)=0.53`$ GeV for a $`b`$-quark mass $`m_b=4.8`$ GeV.

For the $`c`$ quark with $`m_c=1.4`$ GeV the values are close: $`E_{\mathrm{HL}}(\alpha _s=0)=0.76`$ GeV and $`E_{\mathrm{HL}}(\alpha _s=0.39)=0.58`$ GeV are obtainedref.22 . So one can expect that for lighter quarks $`E_{\mathrm{LL}}`$ is also $`0.70.6`$ GeV and the threshold of $`q\overline{q}`$ pair creation inside the world-sheet of the string to be $`M_{\mathrm{thr}}=1.21.4`$ GeV in accord with the experimental $`\rho \rho `$ threshold Eq. (2). Expressing this value in terms of the distance $`R_1`$: $`M_{\mathrm{thr}}=\sigma _0R_1`$ one finds the number

$$R_1=1.31.5\mathrm{fm}$$

close to the value $`R_1`$ in Eq. (3).

At this point one should stress that the phenomenon discussed, viz the pair creation just on the string, does not necessarily exhausts all possible meson decay mechanisms or the true hadronization of the mesons. Namely, as was shown in Ref. ref.12 , pions are directly coupled to the quark (antiquark) at the ends of the string and can be emitted from there without breaking it.

Indeed, bosonization of quark degrees of freedom in Ref. ref.12  leads to the following term in the Lagrangian in the local limit:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }^{(1)}=𝑑td^3x\left[\overline{q}(x)\sigma |\stackrel{}{x}|\gamma _5\frac{\pi ^a\lambda ^a}{F_\pi }q(x)\right],$$
(31)
where the string starts from the antiquark position $`\stackrel{}{x}=0`$; the field $`\pi ^a`$ is the octet of Nambu-Goldstone mesons, and $`F_\pi =93`$ MeV.

The same operator $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{(1)}`$ between quark bound states can be rewritten with the use of the Dirac equation as follows

$$\mathrm{\Delta }^{(1)}=g_A^q\mathrm{Tr}\overline{q}\gamma ^\mu \gamma _5\omega _\mu q,$$
(32)
with

$$\omega _\mu =\frac{i}{2F_\pi }(u_\mu u^{}u^{}_\mu u)u=\mathrm{exp}\left(i\gamma _5\frac{\pi ^a\lambda ^a}{2F_\pi }\right),g_A^q=1.0.$$
(33)
From this expression one can see that $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{(1)}`$ describes the emission of an arbitrary number of Nambu-Goldstone mesons from the quark position and therefore may describe pionic and double pionic hadron decays while the string plays the role of a spectator and stays intact.

At the same time $`q\overline{q}`$ pairs around the string (sea quarks) should be identified with the loops of the determinant which can be written as ref.22 ; ref.23 :

$$\mathrm{ln}det(m^2+D^2)=d^4x_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{ds}{s}\mathrm{exp}(m^2s)(Dz)_{xx}\mathrm{exp}\left(_0^s\frac{\dot{z}^2d\tau }{4}\right)W(C).$$
(34)
The integral $`(Dz)_{xx}`$ in Eq. (34) is taken along the closed loop $`C`$ from some point $`x`$ back to $`x`$ and contains an integral over loops of all sizes. Alternatively, one can separate the quark determinant into parts of small and large eigenvalues as it Ref. ref.14 ,

$$det(A)=det{}_{\mathrm{IR}}{}^{}(A)det{}_{\mathrm{UV}}{}^{}(A),$$
(35)
where $`det_{\mathrm{IR}}`$ takes into account the small eigenvalues (large loops) $`\lambda _n\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{cut}}`$ while $`det_{\mathrm{UV}}`$ contains the large eigenvalues. The latter correspond to the contribution of small virtual loops which should be properly renormalized.

In the physical picture $`det_{\mathrm{IR}}`$ corresponds to the chiral effects which disappear in $`det(m^2+D^2)`$ for large $`m_q`$: $`m_q^2\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}^2`$ together with effects of large loops.

At this point it is important to stress that treating the resonances as quasistationary states one should always consider Green’s functions and correspondingly Wilson $`q\overline{q}`$ loops of finite time extension T, $`T1/\mathrm{\Gamma }(nL)12`$ fm.

For such finite times one can write a general expansion for the original Wilson loop of the $`q\overline{q}`$ meson with pair creation due to the quark determinant Eq. (34) as follows

$`W(C)det(m+D)=W_0(C)+{\displaystyle \frac{a_1}{N_c}}W_1(C,C_1)+{\displaystyle \frac{a_2}{N_c^2}}W_2(C,C_1,C_2)+\mathrm{},`$ (36)
where the coefficients $`a_i=O(1)`$ and higher Wilson loops $`W_i,i1`$, are averaged products of the $`i+1`$ Wilson loops, i.e.

$$W_1(C,C_1)=W(C)W(C_1),W(C)=\frac{1}{N_c}\mathrm{Tr}\widehat{W}(C).$$
(37)
It is clear that when $`T\mathrm{}`$ and $`rR_1`$ (so that decay is energetically possible) the asymptotics of the r.h.s. of Eq. (36) is

$$\mathrm{exp}(\sigma rT)+\frac{a_1}{N_c}\mathrm{exp}(T(M_1+M_2))+\frac{a_2}{N_c^2}\mathrm{exp}(TM_i)+\mathrm{},$$
(38)
where $`M_i`$ is the sum of the masses of the decay products ($`i=1,2`$ in the simplest case and $`i=1\mathrm{}k`$ for meson decay into $`k`$-particles etc.). So, if $`T\mathrm{}`$ the resonances are dying out and the second term in Eq. (38) is dominant, which means that only the products of meson decay are left.

However, for finite $`T12`$ fm the situation is different and one can expect a delicate balance between the large $`N_c`$ limit (suppressing $`q\overline{q}`$ pair creation) and large times $`T`$ (preferring large internal loops). This statement is the dynamical basis of our main assumption about the existence of a specific state of the string with effectively a hole inside the world sheet which obeys the area law with a reduced (renormalized) string tension $`\sigma ^{}=\sigma (r)`$.

Thus we introduce the new concept of a transitional regime which in terms of $`Q\overline{Q}`$ separations $`r`$ refers to the region

$$R_1rR_2$$

where $`R_11.21.4`$ fm. $`R_22.5`$ fm corresponds to high excitations with energies $`E^{}2.5`$ GeV.

In this region, due to relatively small quark loops and correspondingly small holes in the string world sheet, the string tension is nonperturbatively renormalized and decreases with growing $`r`$. While the loops are still virtual, their presence does not lead to actual string breaking (with appreciable probability) even though the energy of the string for $`rR_1`$ is sufficient for meson decay. We suggest here that only for much larger distances, $`rR_22.5`$ fm the string breaking happens with large probability.

A first argument in favour of this picture is that highly excited mesons of large radii do exist and lie on the corresponding linear Regge trajectories, while their characteristics can be computed as in the QCD string approach, neglecting decay channels. At the same time at such large distances the string tension cannot remain intact and should be strongly decreased by the appearance of holes inside the string world sheet due to pair creation.

The second argument refers to the experimental information about strong decay modes. The first strong decays without Goldstone particles is observed only for $`f_0(1370)\rho \rho `$ and $`f_2(1565)\rho _0\rho _0`$ decays in accord with our picture that $`\sigma =constant`$ at distances $`rR_1`$ or excitations $`E^{}1.4`$ GeV.

For higher excitations, in the range 1.4 GeV $`E^{}2.5`$ GeV, at present only several strong decays like $`f_2(1640)\omega \omega `$, (seen); $`\pi _2(1670)\omega \rho `$ (branching $`2.7`$%), and $`f_4(2050)\omega \omega `$ (branching $`25`$%) have been measured and in all these cases the branching ratios of decays without Goldstone particles are never large.

The third argument refers to the r.m.s. radii $`R(nL)=\sqrt{<r^2>_{nL}}`$ of the radials which are ($`n_r0`$) calculated for the linear potential with $`\sigma _0=0.19`$ GeV2 (see Table 1). (It is worth to notice that the numbers given for $`R(nL)`$ represent the lower limits of the true r.m.s. radii, since they correspond to larger meson masses and the actual values of $`R(nL)`$ are about 20-50% larger (see Table 6).

From the values of $`R(nL)`$ given here one can see that among the ground states only the $`1G`$ state has $`R(1G)1.4`$ fm, while for the $`2L`$ and the $`3L`$ states (with the exception of the $`2S`$ state with relatively small r.m.s. radius equal to 1.21 fm) $`R(nL)`$are in the range:

$`1.4\mathrm{fm}<R(2L)<1.8\mathrm{fm}`$ $`(n_r=1),`$
$`1.7\mathrm{fm}<R(3L)<2.0\mathrm{fm}`$ $`(n_r=2).`$ (39)
The values of $`M`$(exp) for all states underlined in Table 1 are shifted down compared to the theoretical values calculated with the same linear potential that gives a good description of the orbital excitations with $`n_r=0`$. This example agrees with our estimate of the characteristic size $`R_1=1.4`$ fm where the pair creation is beginning to affect the string tension $`\sigma (r)`$.

The r.m.s. radii in Table 1 also show that even for the linear potential $`R(nL)1.90`$ fm for such states as the $`3F`$ states: $`f_4(2290)`$, $`f_3(2280)`$, $`a_4(2280)`$, and $`a_3(2310)`$ref.2 .

At this point it is important to stress the difference and similarity of our approach with that in Refs. ref.9 , ref.10 . In both approaches it is stressed that the $`q\overline{q}`$ pair creation is responsible for the renormalization of the string tension and therefore the unquenched string tension is lower than in the quenched case. Moreover in Ref. ref.10  as well as in the present paper it is emphasized that even when level crossing occurs, i.e. when $`V(r)`$ equals $`2M_{\mathrm{HL}}`$, the string potential can be used throughout, only the string tension being renormalized.

The difference between both approaches is in the meaning of this renormalization. We assume here that there exists a universal (quantum number independent) prehadronization stage when small quark loops attenuate the string tension, while one can still neglect the influence of specific decay channels which produce the hadronic shift.

It was already realized in Refs. ref.9 ; ref.10  that the very fact of the occurrence of smooth Regge trajectories and ordered hadronic spectra is difficult to explain if the hadronic shifts are essentially important, since the latter depend on the concrete hadronic channels involved and vary irregularly from channel to channel.

In the suggested picture due to the universal predecay (prehadronization) stage with renormalized (attenuated ) string tension not only can the spectrum be calculated, but the notion of linear Regge trajectories, both radial and orbital, is kept intact.

## IV Modified confining potential

From the physical picture discussed in Section III and the introduction it follows that up to the characteristic distance $`R_11.21.4`$ fm the string tension $`\sigma `$ is constant, while for larger $`r`$ it depends on the $`q\overline{q}`$ separation as in Eq. (6). We propose here the nonperturbative potential $`\sigma (r)r`$ with the string tension taken in the following form:

$`V_{\mathrm{NP}}(r)=\sigma (r)r,\sigma (r)=\sigma _0\left[1\gamma {\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{exp}(\sqrt{\sigma }_0(rR_1))}{B+\mathrm{exp}(\sqrt{\sigma }_0(rR_1))}}\right].`$ (40)
In the definition Eq. (40) the constant $`\gamma `$ determines the value of the string tension at large separations so that

$$\sigma _2=\sigma (r2.5\mathrm{fm})\sigma _0(1\gamma ).$$
(41)
Note that $`\sigma _00.180.19`$ GeV2 defines the common scale of the modified string potential and can be fixed by the Regge slope of the leading $`L`$-trajectory.

In general our calculations are performed with the potential $`V(r)`$ Eq. (9) containing the perturbative potential $`V_\mathrm{P}(r)`$,

$$V_\mathrm{P}(r)=\frac{4\alpha _s}{3r},$$
(42)
where for the strong coupling constant the value $`\alpha _s=0.30`$ is taken.

The best description of the meson spectra was obtained for the following set of the parameters in $`\sigma (r)`$:

$$\gamma =0.40,R_1=6\mathrm{GeV}^1,B=20.0,$$
(43)
while the values of $`\sigma _0=0.185\pm 0.005`$ GeV2 and $`\alpha _s=0.30\pm 0.08`$ can vary in narrow ranges. In Fig. 1 this potential is drawn for the parameters Eq. (43), $`\alpha _s=0`$ and $`\sigma _0=0.19`$ GeV2.

At the distance $`R_2(nL)=2.5`$ fm the value $`\sigma _2=0.116`$ GeV2 turns out to be rather small, a value 40% smaller than $`\sigma _0=0.19`$ GeV2.

The spin-averaged meson masses $`\overline{M}(nL)`$ are calculated solving the SSE Eq. (8) with the modified potential $`V(r)`$. Their values will be given in the next section. Here only some characteristic features of the SSE solutions for the modified potential will be discussed.

First, the average values of the string tension $`\overline{\sigma }=<\sigma (r)>_{nL}`$ turns out to be almost constant for the ground states ($`n_r=0`$, $`L3`$), while for the radials with $`n_r2`$ $`\overline{\sigma }`$ is already 20% smaller, see Table 2.

Secondly, the kinetic energy and therefore the constituent quark mass $`\mu (nL)`$ does practically not change for the ground states in contrast to the high excitations where the string size is growing and the quark kinetic energy is becoming significantly smaller. In Table 3 $`\mu (nP)`$ for the $`nP`$ states for the potential Eq. (40) with $`\alpha _s=0`$ and the linear potential $`\sigma _0r`$ are compared (in both cases $`\sigma _0=0.182`$ GeV2).

From Table 3 one can see that for the $`4P(5P)`$ states the difference between the constituent masses is large and reaches $`30`$% . Note that for the modified potential the relations (11) are not valid anymore and

$$\sigma (r)r_{nL}>2\mu (nL)$$
(44)
and therefore in this case the string correction $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{str}}`$ is given by a more general expression than in Eq. (10) ref.7 :

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{st}}=\frac{\overline{\sigma }<r^1>L(L+1)}{\mu (6\mu +<\sigma (r)r>)}.$$
(45)
Also in the self-energy term $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{SE}}(nL)`$ Eq. (13), $`\overline{\sigma }`$ must be used instead of $`\sigma _0`$.

## V The masses of the radials

The masses of the radial excitations for the modified potential Eq. (40) with the Coulomb interaction included are presented in Tables 4-6 for the parameters given in Eq. (43), $`\alpha _s=0.30`$, and the string tension $`\sigma _0=0.19`$ GeV2. In all cases the calculated meson masses turn out to be in good agreement with the existing experimental data.

The numbers in brackets in Table 4 are the masses calculated for the Cornell potential,

$$V_\mathrm{C}(r)=\frac{4\alpha _s}{3r}+\sigma _0r.$$
(46)
From a comparison of the numbers given one can see that with the modified nonperturbative potential the mass of the $`4S(5S)`$ states appears to be 400 MeV (500 MeV) lower than for the Cornell potential Eq. (46), while for the $`1S`$ and $`1P`$ states the difference is only about 60 MeV.

We observe the same picture for the $`P`$-wave and higher excitations when already for the $`2P`$ ($`3P`$) states the spin-averaged mass is $`200MeV`$ (350 MeV) smaller due to the modification of the string potential (see Table 5, where the numbers in the parentheses are calculated with the Cornell potential Eq. (46) with the same $`\alpha _s`$ and $`\sigma _0`$).

The calculated masses of the $`nS`$ and $`nP`$ states as well as the $`nD`$ and $`nF`$ states (see Table 6) appear to be in good agreement with experiment. However, for the $`nD`$ and $`nF`$ states a better agreement is obtained for smaller values of the strong coupling constant and the numbers given in Table 6 refer to $`\alpha _s=0.21`$. This fact may be connected with a suppression of one-gluon-exchange for large-size mesons.

Thus one can conclude that due to the attenuation of the string tension in the potential Eq. (40) the masses of the radials turn out to be $`100200`$ MeV (for the $`2L`$ states), $`300`$ MeV (for the $`3L`$ states), and $`350400`$ MeV smaller than for the standard linear potential. It is of interest also to compare the r.m.s. radii $`R(nL)`$ of the radials for the modified potential (see Table 7) with that for the $`\sigma _0r`$ potential given in Table 1.

From this comparison one can find out that the size of the $`2P`$ mesons is changing from $`R(2P)=1.31`$ fm to 1.74 fm while the mass $`\overline{M}(2P)`$ is shifted down by about 200 MeV. From Table 7 it is also seen that for the modified potential highly excited radials, like the $`3P`$ mesons, have very large r.m.s. radii $`2.52.8`$ fm, in particular the experimentally observed mesons $`\rho (4S)`$ and $`a_J(3P)`$ have $`R(nL)2.52.6`$ fm.

## VI The slope of the $`n_r`$-trajectories

There are not many radial excitations with well established masses which are included in the PDG compilation ref.1 . Most radials were observed in the BNL and Crystal Barrel experiments and discussed in many papers for the last five years (see Ref. ref.2 -ref.4  and references therein). Here we present the values of the slope $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ defining the $`n_r`$-trajectory Eq. (1).

Since we have calculated here only the spin-averaged masses of the radials, correspondingly just for them the $`n_r`$-trajectory Eq. (1) will be calculated below. Although in many cases there exists a large uncertainty in the values of $`\overline{M}(nL)`$ we give below in Table 8 several well established masses taking into account that the spin splittings are small.

Then taking the difference between the neighbouring $`\overline{M}^2`$ values one can calculate the values of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ in Eq. (1):

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{exp}}(S)`$ $`=`$ $`1.64\pm 0.11\mathrm{GeV}^2,`$
$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{exp}}(P)`$ $`=`$ $`1.35\pm 0.25\mathrm{GeV}^2,`$
$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{exp}}(D)`$ $`=`$ $`1.21\pm 0.16\mathrm{GeV}^2,`$
$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{exp}}(F)`$ $`=`$ $`1.21\pm 0.08\mathrm{GeV}^2,`$ (47)
which in some cases have a rather large experimental error, but for $`L0`$ practically coincide with the value $`\mathrm{\Omega }=1.151.30`$ GeV2 obtained in Ref. ref.3 . Unfortunately, among the $`nS`$ states the very important ones $`\rho (3S)`$ and $`\pi (4S)`$ are still not observed and the known value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{exp}}(nS)`$ obtained from the difference of $`\overline{M}^2(2S)`$ and $`\overline{M}^2(1S)`$ appears to be 20% larger than in Ref. ref.3  and close to our number Eq. (49).

From the meson masses given in Tables 4-6 one can calculate now the theoretical values of the slope $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{thr}}`$ taking for the mass $`\overline{M}^2(1L)`$ with $`n_r=0`$ in Eq. (1) the experimental number. Then one finds

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{th}}(P)`$ $`=`$ $`1.38\pm 0.05\mathrm{GeV}^2,`$
$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{th}}(D)`$ $`=`$ $`1.29\pm 0.06\mathrm{GeV}^2,`$
$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{th}}(F)`$ $`=`$ $`1.22\pm 0.13\mathrm{GeV}^2.`$ (48)
However, for the $`nS`$ radials the slope was found to be slightly dependent on $`n_r`$.

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{th}}(S)=1.601.45\mathrm{for}n_r=0,1,2,$$
(49)
which is close to the experimental value $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{exp}}=1.6\pm 0.1`$ GeV2 obtained for the first excited state, while for higher $`S`$-excitations $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{th}}`$ was found to be $`15\%`$ smaller and equal to

$$\overline{M}^2(4S)\overline{M}^2(3S)=2.18^21.87^2=1.26\mathrm{GeV}^2,$$
(50)
We can conclude that in the physical picture where the confining potential is modified due to $`q\overline{q}`$ pair creation, the slope $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is decreasing from a value $`2.0`$ GeV2 for the standard linear potential to values in the range $`1.21.35`$ GeV2 for mesons with $`L0`$.

## VII Conclusions

We have considered here the light meson orbital and radial excitations using the effective Hamiltonian derived from QCD under definite and verifyable assumptions. In the QCD string approach the spin-averaged meson mass $`\overline{M}(nL)`$ can be calculated through the only scale parameter - the string tension and does not contain any arbitrary subtraction constants, since nonperturbative quark mass renormalization is taken into account as in Ref. ref.12 . The suggested formalism allows to resolve three old painstaking problems:

To determine the origin of the constituent mass for a light quark which is derived to be the average of the quark kinetic energy operator and can be computed through the string tension;

To obtain the correct slope of the Regge trajectory when the string moment of inertia is taken in account;

To obtain the correct absolute values of the light meson masses and as a consequence the correct value of the $`L`$-trajectory intercept (which refers to the spin averaged meson masses). The use of the $`L`$-trajectories is very convenient since they are universal, i.e. in the closed-channel approximation they are the same for isovector and isoscalar mesons.

In Ref. ref.7  this formalism was successfully applied to the orbital excitations with $`n_r=0`$ when for the linear confining potential the string tension was taken constant. However, in an attempt to describe the radial excitations one encounters a serious problem - the Regge slope of the $`n_r`$-trajectories calculated with the same potential appears to be 1.5-1.7 times larger than in experiment.

This phenomenon, the lowering of the masses of the highly excited mesons, is connected in our picture with large sizes of the high excitations, which can be as large as 2.5 fm and lead to the formulation of the concept of the predecay (prehadronization) region where due to $`q\overline{q}`$ pair creation the string tension is attenuated at separations $`rR_1=1.2fm1.4`$ fm. In this physical picture it is important to take into account the specific character of the $`\pi `$-meson interaction with a light quark which occurs at the end of the string and therefore the string does not break due to the $`\pi `$-meson emission and this fact reconciles a high probability of pionic exchanges for the mesons with the existence of linear Regge trajectories.

The explicit and very simple model of the modified confining potential where the string tension depends on the separation $`r`$ for $`rR_1`$, allows to obtain the masses of the radials in good agreement with experiment and may be considered as an explanation for the observation that the masses of high excitations are lowered. In particular the centers of gravity of the $`2P_J`$ and $`3P_J`$ multiplets appear to be lower by $`200`$ MeV and $`350`$ MeV respectively. The slope of the $`n_r`$-trajectory $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ ($`L0`$) is found to be 1.35- 1.22 GeV2 in agreement with the analysis in Ref.ref.3 . For the $`nS`$ states the calculated slope is found to be larger, $`\mathrm{\Omega }1.5`$ GeV2. The mechanism of reduced string tension has a universal character and does not depend on the quantum numbers and concrete positions of open thresholds in meson decays.

The authors would like to express their gratitude to the theory group of Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF)for their hospitality. One of the authors (Yu.A.S.) was supported by DOE contract DE-AC05-84ER40150 under which SURA operates the TJNAF. This work was partly supported by the RFFI grant 00-02-17836 and INTAS grant 00-00110.

## Appendix A Matrix elements for the solutions using the modified linear potential

Here we present some characteristics of the SSE solutions Eq. (8) for the modified confining potential Eq. (40) needed to calculate the spin-averaged meson masses. The eigenvalues of the Eq. (8) for the potential Eq. (40) plus Coulomb potential with parameters Eq. (43) and $`\sigma _0=0.19`$ GeV2 are given in Table 9 for the $`S`$\- and $`P`$-wave mesons ($`\alpha _s=0.30`$), and in Table 10 for the $`D`$\- and $`F`$-mesons ($`\alpha _s=0.21`$).

We give also the constituent masses and the matrix elements $`<r^1>`$ entering the string corrections $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{str}}(nL)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{SE}}(nL)`$ while the average values of $`\overline{\sigma }=<\sigma (r)>_{nL}`$ are given in Table 2.

We would like to note that for the modified confining potential the constituent mass grows by only about 15% for the $`D`$-wave states and about 25% for the $`P`$-wave states, in contrast to the situation for the standard linear potential (see Table 3) where this growth is substantially larger. Also the matrix elements $`<r^1>`$ for the $`nD`$ states with $`n_r=1,2,3`$ turn out to be equal within 2%.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

In the process of diffractive deep inelastic scattering, $`\gamma ^{}+pp+X`$, one can separate perturbative and non-perturbative contributions by filtering out particular diffractive final states. Examples of diffractive states which are perturbatively calculable are longitudinal vector particles or final states which consist of hard jets (and no soft remnant). In the latter case the hard scale which allows the use of pQCD is provided by the large transverse momenta of the jets, and the Pomeron exchange is modeled by the unintegrated gluon density. Another particularly interesting example is diffractive charm production, since the charm quark mass justifies pQCD, even for not so large transverse momenta of the outgoing quarks and gluons. Calculations for the diffractive production of massless open $`q\overline{q}`$ states and of massless $`q\overline{q}g`$ states have been reported in  and in , respectively, and a comparison of diffractive two-jet and three-jet events observed at HERA with these calculations has been presented in . Final states with finite quark masses have been calculated, so far, only for $`q\overline{q}`$ production  which is expected to be the dominant final state in the region of small diffractive masses (large $`\beta `$). However, as there are recent measurements of diffractive $`D^\pm `$ \- production from the H1  and ZEUS  collaborations at HERA, which extend into the small-$`\beta `$-region, gluon radiation can certainly not be neglected, and a full perturbative calculation of $`q\overline{q}g`$ is needed.

In this article we report on a calculation of massive $`q\overline{q}g`$-production in diffractive deep inelastic scattering, and we present a comparison of our cross section formula with the measurements of H1 .

## 2 Calculation of massive $`q\overline{q}g`$ production

We will follow the study of massless $`q\overline{q}g`$-production presented in . In particular, we again work in the leading-log $`M^2`$ approximation, which limits the applicability of our results to the small $`\beta `$-region. Fig. 1 shows the notations of the process. As in  we restrict ourselves to zero momentum transfer, $`t=r^2=0`$. As usually, $`Q^2`$ denotes the virtuality of the photon, $`\sqrt{W^2}`$ the energy of the photon proton system, $`M`$ the mass of the diffractive system, and $`x=Q^2/(Q^2+W^2)`$, $`y=pq/pl`$ are the Bjorken scaling variables (with $`l`$ being the momentum of the incoming electron). The variable $`\beta `$ is defined as $`\beta =Q^2/(Q^2+M^2)`$, and it is convenient to introduce the momentum fraction of the Pomeron by $`x_{}=(Q^2+M^2)/(Q^2+W^2)`$.

We restrict our calculation to the region (leading-log $`M^2`$ approximation):

$`Q^2M^2W^2.`$ (1)
We use Sudakov variables $`k_i=\alpha _iq^{}+\beta _ip+k_{it}`$ (with $`q^{}=q+xp`$, $`k_{it}^2=𝐤_i^2)`$, and we express the phase space in terms of $`y`$, $`Q^2`$, $`M^2`$, $`m^2`$, $`t`$, $`𝐤_1^2`$, $`𝐤_2^2`$ with $`m^2=m_{qq}^2+𝐤_2^2`$ ($`m_{qq}`$ denotes the invariant mass of the $`q\overline{q}`$-subsystem). We obtain the following result:

$$\frac{d\sigma _D^{e^{}p}}{dydQ^2dM^2dm^2d^2𝐤_1d^2𝐤_2dt}_{|t=0}=\frac{\alpha _{em}}{yQ^2\pi }$$

$`[{\displaystyle \frac{1+(1y)^2}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{D,T+}^{\gamma ^{}p}}{dM^2dm^2d^2𝐤_1d^2𝐤_2dt_{|t=0}}}2(1y){\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{D,T}^{\gamma ^{}p}}{dM^2dm^2d^2𝐤_1d^2𝐤_2dt_{|t=0}}}`$ (2)
$`+(1y){\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{D,L}^{\gamma ^{}p}}{dM^2dm^2d^2𝐤_1d^2𝐤_2dt_{|t=0}}}+(2y)\sqrt{1y}{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{D,I}^{\gamma ^{}p}}{dM^2dm^2d^2𝐤_1d^2𝐤_2dt_{|t=0}}}],`$
The differential cross sections of $`\gamma ^{}pccg+p`$ are given by:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{D,T+}^{\gamma ^{}p}}{dM^2dm^2d^2𝐤_1d^2𝐤_2dt_{|t=0}}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{9}{128\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{S}(M^2m^2)m^2}}e_c^2\alpha _{em}\alpha _s^3\alpha _1(1\alpha _1)`$ (3)
$`\left[\left(\alpha _1^2+(1\alpha _1)^2\right)M_{il}M_{il}^{}+m_q^2M_lM_l^{}\right]`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{D,T}^{\gamma ^{}p}}{dM^2dm^2d^2𝐤_1d^2𝐤_2dt_{|t=0}}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{9}{128\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{S}(M^2m^2)m^2}}e_c^2\alpha _{em}\alpha _s^3\alpha _1^2(1\alpha _1)^2`$ (4)
$`\left[M_{1l}M_{1l}^{}M_{2l}M_{2l}^{}\right]`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{D,L}^{\gamma ^{}p}}{dM^2dm^2d^2𝐤_1d^2𝐤_2dt_{|t=0}}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{9}{128\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{S}(M^2m^2)m^2}}e_c^2\alpha _{em}\alpha _s^34\alpha _1^3(1\alpha _1)^3Q^2M_lM_l^{}`$ (5)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{D,I}^{\gamma ^{}p}}{dM^2dm^2d^2𝐤_1d^2𝐤_2dt_{|t=0}}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{9}{128\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{S}(M^2m^2)m^2}}e_c^2\alpha _{em}\alpha _s^3\alpha _1^2(1\alpha _1)^2(12\alpha _1)`$ (6)
$`\sqrt{Q^2}\left[M_{1l}M_l^{}+M_lM_{1l}^{}\right]`$
with

$$S=\left(1+\frac{𝐤_1^2}{m^2}\frac{(𝐤_1+𝐤_2)^2}{m^2}\right)^24\frac{(𝐤_1^2+m_q^2)}{m^2},$$
(7)
$$M_{il}=\frac{d^2𝐥}{\pi 𝐥^2}(x_{},𝐥^2)T_{il},$$
(8)
and

$$T_{il}=\left(\frac{𝐥+𝐤_1+𝐤_2}{D(𝐥+𝐤_1+𝐤_2)}+\frac{𝐤_1+𝐤_2}{D(𝐤_1+𝐤_2)}\frac{𝐤_1𝐥}{D(𝐤_1𝐥)}\frac{𝐤_1}{D(𝐤_1)}\right)_i\left(\frac{𝐥+𝐤_2}{(𝐥+𝐤_2)^2}\frac{𝐤_2}{𝐤_2^2}\right)_l$$

$$+(𝐥𝐥)$$
(9)
$$T_l=\left(\frac{1}{D(𝐥+𝐤_1+𝐤_2)}+\frac{1}{D(𝐤_1+𝐤_2)}\frac{1}{D(𝐤_1𝐥)}\frac{1}{D(𝐤_1)}\right)\left(\frac{𝐥+𝐤_2}{(𝐥+𝐤_2)^2}\frac{𝐤_2}{𝐤_2^2}\right)_l$$

$$+(𝐥𝐥).$$
(10)
Here

$$D(𝐤)=\alpha _1(1\alpha _1)Q^2+𝐤^2+m_q^2,$$
(11)
and the function $``$ denotes the unintegrated (forward) gluon density111Note that different definitions for $``$ exist, here we use $``$ as defined in eq.(8). which is connected with the usual gluon density $`g(x,Q^2)`$ through:

$$_0^{Q^2}𝑑𝐥^2(x,𝐥^2)xg(x,Q^2).$$
(12)
The $``$ sign in the above equation indicates that the relation is valid for large $`Q^2`$. Strictly speaking, the kinematics of diffractive $`q\overline{q}g`$ production requires the nonforward (skewed) gluon density. However, our cross section formula has been derived in the leading-$`\mathrm{ln}W^2`$, leading-$`\mathrm{ln}M^2`$ approximation, and the use of the gluon density in (12) is valid only in the double logarithmic approximation where skewedness is negligeable.

The parameter $`\alpha _1`$ is determined by the on-shell conditions for the final state particles:

$$\alpha _1=\frac{1}{2}\left[1+\frac{𝐤_1^2}{m^2}\frac{(𝐤_1+𝐤_2)^2}{m^2}\pm \sqrt{S}\right],$$
(13)
and it varies between 0 and 1. The values of the momenta $`𝐤_1`$, $`𝐤_2`$ and of $`m^2`$ determine the sign in eq.(13). The validity of our cross section formula is restricted to the kinematic region where the gluon transverse momentum $`𝐤_2`$ is not small.

The quark mass $`m_q`$ enters the calculations in two places. First, the phase space of the diffractive system (and so the parameter $`\alpha _1`$ and the function $`S`$) depend upon the quark mass via the on-shell conditions for the outgoing particles. Secondly, the propagators of the internal fermion lines are modified by a nonzero quark mass which leads to changes in the matrix-elements. Apart from the function $`D(𝐤)`$, eq.(11), which enters in all four $`\gamma ^{}p`$ \- cross sections, an additional term containing the quark mass emerges in $`d\sigma _{D,T+}^{\gamma ^{}p}`$ (eq.(3)).

## 3 Comparison with measurements

Compared to other charmed particles, $`D^\pm `$ mesons are easy to reconstruct which makes them attractive objects for testing diffractive charm production. $`D^\pm `$ mesons are identified via the decay channel

$$D^+D^0\pi _{slow}^+(K^{}\pi ^+)\pi _{slow}^+(\text{and c.c.}),$$

which has a branching ratio of 2.63% . In the following comparison we concentrate on a comparison with the measurement of the H1 collaboration , who has analyzed data collected throughout the years 1995-1997. The amount of data is still quite poor due to the small branching ratio of the $`D^{}`$ meson, but higher statistics will come from new data.

We have implemented the cross section formulae for diffractive massive $`c\overline{c}`$ production  and from our expression eq.(2-6) for the massive $`q\overline{q}g`$ production into the Monte Carlo generator Rapgap , which includes full hadronization according to the Lund string model as implemented in Jetset/Pythia . We have used a fixed strong coupling constant $`\alpha _s=0.25`$, and a charm quark mass of $`m_q=1.5`$ GeV. The transition of the charm quark to the $`D^{}`$ meson is performed via the Lund heavy quark fragmentation function. Since the experimental measurement does not separate the charge of the $`D^{}`$ meson, we have added the cross sections of both charged $`D^{}`$ mesons.

Events generated with Rapgap are selected within the same kinematic region as in the measurement of H1 , using electron and proton momenta (in the HERA system) of 27.6 GeV and 820 GeV, respectively, and:

$`0.05`$ $`y`$ $`0.7`$ (14)
$`2`$ $`Q^2`$ $`100\text{GeV}^2`$
$`x_{}`$ $`<0.04`$
$`|t|`$ $`<1\text{GeV}^2`$
As the measured cross section is integrated over $`t`$ for $`|t|1`$ GeV2, we have multiplied our cross section formulas (eq.(2-6)), valid for $`|t|=0`$, with a phenomenologically motivated $`t`$ distribution of the form:

$$f^2(t)=\left(\frac{42.8t}{4t}\frac{1}{\left(1\frac{t}{0.7}\right)^2}\right)^2$$
(15)
The $`D^{}`$ mesons are experimentally detected in the range:

$`|\eta (D^\pm )|`$ $`<`$ $`1.5`$ (16)
$`p_T(D^\pm )`$ $`>`$ $`2\text{GeV}`$
with the pseudo-rapidity $`\eta =\mathrm{log}\mathrm{tan}(\theta /2)`$ and the transverse momentum $`p_T`$ of the $`D^{}`$ meson measured in the $`ep`$ laboratory system.

As can be seen from eqs.(9,10), there is a potential divergency, if the transverse momentum of the final state gluon $`𝐤_2^2`$ approaches zero.

In order to avoid the non-perturbative region, we impose a lower cutoff $`𝐤_{2cut}^2`$ on the gluon transverse momentum. In our calculations we have considered $`𝐤_{2cut}=1\text{GeV}`$ and $`𝐤_{2cut}=1.5\text{GeV}`$. For the unintegrated gluon density, which enters in eq.(8), we have used three different approaches: the derivative of the NLO GRV  gluon density dGRV, the unintegrated gluon density $`(x,𝐥^2)`$ obtained in the saturation model of Golec-Biernat and Wüsthoff  GBW, and the CCFM  unintegrated gluon density $`𝒜(x,𝐥^2,\overline{q}^2)`$ JS of , where $`\overline{q}`$ defines the evolution scale, related to the maximum allowed angle of any emission in the angular ordering approach.

The unintegrated gluon density can be obtained from the integrated gluon density, if in eq.(12) the $``$ sign is replaced by an equality sign:

$$(x,𝐥^2)=\frac{xg(x,\mu ^2)}{\mu ^2}|_{\mu ^2=𝐥^2}$$
(17)
Here we use for $`xg(x,\mu ^2)`$ the NLO GRV  gluon density, since it is the only integrated gluon density available, starting at a low value of $`Q_0^2=0.4`$ GeV2. Due to the finite $`Q_0`$ in any of the available integrated gluon densities, a lower integration limit $`𝐥_{min}^2Q_0^2`$ in eq.(8) is introduced. Variation of this parameter mainly affects the normalization of the cross sections. For example, when $`𝐥_{min}^2`$ is decreased from $`1`$ to $`0.5\text{GeV}^2`$, the $`x_{}`$-distribution at $`𝐤_{2cut}=1\text{GeV}`$ roughly doubles in the whole $`x_{}`$ range. We have chosen to set $`𝐥_{min}^2`$ as small as it is compatible with the definition of the integrated gluon density, so $`𝐥_{min}^2=0.4\text{GeV}^2`$ for dGRV. The other two unintegrated gluon densities, GBW and JS, are defined also for the very small $`𝐥^2`$ region, and therefore no cut needs to be applied there. In the numerical treatment of the $`c\overline{c}`$ production cross section neither $`𝐤_{2cut}^2`$ nor $`𝐥_{min}^2`$ are needed.

In Fig. 2 we show the effect of changing the cut $`𝐤_{cut}^2`$ on the differential cross section $`d\sigma /dlog_{10}x_{}`$, for diffractive $`D^{}`$ meson production in the kinematic region specified above and compare our prediction to the measurement of H1 . Also shown in Fig. 2 are the individual contributions of $`c\overline{c}`$ (dashed histogram) and $`c\overline{c}g`$ (dotted histogram). One clearly sees the reduction of the $`c\overline{c}g`$ contribution when the cutoff in $`𝐤_{cut}`$ is increased. Since our calculation is valid for small $`x_{}`$, we focus only on agreement in the low $`x_{}`$ region. A cutoff value of $`𝐤_{cut}^2=1.5\text{GeV}^2`$ seems to be a reasonable choice which we will keep independently of the choice of the unintegrated gluon density. With this cut the computed cross section in the lower $`x_{}`$ bin agrees well with the data. In the upper $`x_{}`$ bin, however, the theoretical curve is by a factor of about 10 smaller than the data point (ignoring the large error on the measurement). In this $`x_{}`$-region it is expected that, apart from Pomeron exchange (which, in our model, is the 2-gluon exchange) secondary exchanges have to be included: in a perturbative description such an exchange corresponds to $`q\overline{q}`$-exchange. Since such a contribution has not yet been included into our calculation, it is not surprising that the two-gluon model undershoots the data.

In Fig. 3$`a`$ we compare our prediction of the cross section for diffractive $`D^{}`$ production as a function of $`\mathrm{log}_{10}\beta `$ with the measurement of H1 (it is understood, that all other variables, in particular $`x_{}`$, are integrated over). We also show the individual contributions of $`c\overline{c}`$ (dashed histogram) and $`c\overline{c}g`$ (dotted histogram). Clearly, the $`c\overline{c}g`$ is badly needed in order to get closer to the data than with $`c\overline{c}`$ alone. The measured cross section is slowly rising with decreasing $`\mathrm{log}_{10}\beta `$. The theoretical curve does not quite follow this rise, the reason for this is the correlation between $`\beta `$ and $`x_{}`$: small $`\beta `$ values require large diffractive masses $`M`$, which due to the kinematic restrictions in the analysis, are predominantly produced at large $`x_{}`$. As argued above the large $`x_{}`$-region needs secondary exchange which in our approach is not yet included. For illustration, we show in Fig. 3$`b`$ the cross section for diffractive $`D^{}`$ production $`d\sigma /d\beta `$. We observe that the strong drop in cross section at small $`\beta `$, as seen in Fig. 3$`a`$ is a consequence of plotting $`d\sigma /d\mathrm{log}_{10}\beta `$ instead of $`d\sigma /d\beta `$. From Fig. 3$`b`$ we see that the theoretical curve increases towards low $`\beta `$, and only at $`\beta <0.01`$ is decreasing, which again is a consequence of kinematic correlations. If the double differential cross section $`d^2\sigma /d\beta dx_{}`$ is considered, our prediction shows the expected rise towards small $`\beta `$ at fixed $`x_{}`$. The shape of the theoretical curves as a function of $`\beta `$ is almost independent of the choice of the cutoffs $`𝐥_{min}^2`$ and $`𝐤_{cut}`$, as they mainly affect the overall magnitude of the cross section. In the small $`\beta `$ region, corresponding to large diffractive masses $`M`$, also the radiation of more than one gluon, such as $`c\overline{c}gg`$ need to be considered. Since experimentally the cross section is defined as $`e+pe^{}+(D^{}+X)+p_{diff}`$, where in the diffractive system $`M=D^{}+X`$, the hadronic state $`X`$ is not further specified or measured, multiple soft gluon contributions might be present in the data, which have yet not been estimated consistently in the perturbative calculations.

The saturation model of K.Golec-Biernat and M.Wüsthoff  describes a completely different approach to estimate the unintegrated gluon density $`(x,𝐥^2)`$, which is needed in eq.(8). In this model the total $`\gamma ^{}p`$ cross section is described by the interaction of a $`q\overline{q}`$ pair (dipole) with the proton, and a particular ansatz is made for the dipole cross section. The function $`(x,𝐥^2)`$ has the form

$$(x,𝐥^2)=\frac{3\sigma _0}{4\pi ^2\alpha _s}R_0^2(x)𝐥^2e^{R_0^2(x)𝐥^2},R_0=\frac{1}{\text{GeV}}\left(\frac{x}{x_0}\right)^{\lambda /2},$$
(18)
and the three parameters of the model are determined by fitting inclusive DIS data (including charm with: $`\sigma _0=29.12`$ mb,$`\lambda =0.277`$, $`x_0=\mathrm{0.41\hspace{0.33em}10}^4`$ and $`\alpha _s=0.2`$ ). For large $`𝐥^2`$, $`(x,𝐥^2)`$ has the meaning of the unintegrated gluon density, but for smaller $`𝐥^2`$ the function looses this interpretation and has to be viewed as a (model dependent) extrapolation. The ansatz eq.(18) holds for the $`q\overline{q}`$ color dipole cross section. The $`q\overline{q}g`$ system consists of a color triplet, and anti-triplet and a color octet, and one expects that the dominant configuration is a dipole consisting of two octets: in eq.(18) we therefore rescale the color charge and use:

$$(x,𝐥^2)=\frac{3\sigma _0}{2.25^24\pi ^2\alpha _s}R_0^2(x)𝐥^2e^{\frac{R_0^2(x)}{2.25}𝐥^2}.$$
(19)
Insertion of the ansatz (eqs.(18,19)) into eq.(12) leads to an integrand that vanishes as $`𝐥^2`$ goes to zero. Therefore, within this model we no longer need any lower cutoff in the $`𝐥^2`$ integral, and our calculation provides absolute predictions of the cross sections (note, however, that we still have the cutoff $`𝐤_{cut}=1.5\text{GeV}`$ on the final state gluon). Fig. 4 shows the differential cross section $`d\sigma /d\mathrm{log}_{10}x_{}`$ calculated using eq.(18,19) compared to the measurement of H1. The calculated cross section ($`c\overline{c}`$+$`c\overline{c}g`$) is similar to that of Fig. 3, and the same discussion applies. Also the $`\beta `$ distribution (Fig. 4$`b`$) is very similar to the previous model. Note that without the correcting color factor in the dipole cross section formula the $`c\overline{c}g`$ cross section would be larger by about a factor of about 1.5.

The unintegrated gluon density, based on the consistent treatment of color coherence effects, is described by the CCFM evolution equation . According to the CCFM equation, the emission of partons during the initial state cascade is allowed only in an angular-ordered region of phase space. In the large (small) $`x`$ limit, the CCFM equation is equivalent to the DGLAP (BFKL) evolution equations, respectively. A solution of the CCFM equation has been found, which successfully can be used to describe a bulk of measurements at HERA and the Tevatron . However, due to the angular ordering requirement, the unintegrated gluon density $`𝒜(x,𝐥^2,\overline{q}^2)`$ is now also a function of the evolution scale $`\overline{q}`$, which is related to the maximum allowed angle. Here, this scale is set either by the $`q\overline{q}`$ pair, or by the final state gluon for $`q\overline{q}g`$:

$$\overline{q}^2=\{\begin{array}{cc}m_{q\overline{q}}^2+𝐐_t^2\hfill & \text{for}q\overline{q}\hfill \\ \frac{𝐤_2^2}{1z}\hfill & \text{for}q\overline{q}g\hfill \end{array}$$
(20)
with $`𝐐_t`$ being the vectorial sum of the transverse momenta of the $`q\overline{q}`$ pair, and $`z=(Q^2+m_{qq}^2)/(Q^2+M^2)`$. Since the explicit parameterization of $`𝒜(x,𝐥^2,\overline{q}^2)`$ from  is valid also in the very small $`𝐥^2`$ region, no cut on $`𝐥^2`$ needs to be applied for the integral in eq. (8). The results for the differential cross sections as a function of $`x_{}`$ and the $`\mathrm{log}_{10}\beta `$ shown in Fig. 5$`a`$ and $`b`$ are quite similar to those of the unintegrated gluon density from saturation model GBW and or from the derivative of the integrated gluon density dGRV. The main difference is the ratio of $`c\overline{c}`$ and $`c\overline{c}g`$ contribution. The enhancement of the $`\beta `$ distribution by $`c\overline{c}g`$ is much stronger than in case of the two other models.

## 4 Conclusion

In this article we have analyzed DIS diffractive charm production (production of $`D^\pm `$ mesons) within the perturbative two-gluon model. For the two-gluon amplitude we have used three different models: the unintegrated gluon density derived from the integrated DGLAP gluon density dGRV, the saturation model of Golec-Biernat and Wüsthoff GBW, and a CCFM-based unintegrated gluon density JS (the last two models are parameter-free, the first one depends upon a cutoff on the internal momentum integral). In all three cases the calculated cross sections are of the same order of magnitude as the data, and within the kinematical region where the models apply, the shapes of the cross sections are consistent with the data. Compared to an earlier attempt (with the dGRV gluon density) where only $`c\overline{c}`$ production had been included in the theoretical analysis the present analysis contains, as the new ingredient, also (massive) $`c\overline{c}g`$ production and leads to a considerable improvement in the agreement with experimental data.

It is encouraging to see that, for the dGRV gluon density, our analysis of diffractive charm production uses the same parameters as in the successful analysis of diffractive jet production and we were able to consistently describe both types of processes.

We view the use of the two-gluon model as part of a more general strategy of analyzing DIS diffraction data at HERA. In a first step one would analyze those diffractive final states which are dominated by short distances (diffractive jets or states consisting of heavy quarks): in these processes the application of the two-gluon model can be justified. In a second step, one would try to extrapolate also into kinematic regions where soft physics becomes important. In the present analysis, such extrapolations are contained in the saturation model and in the CCFM amplitude; the use of the GRV gluon density, on the other hand, requires a momentum cutoff. In a final (and future) step one would need to find a QCD-based ‘derivation’ of the extrapolation from hard to soft physics.

Despite this encouraging success, several improvements in the theoretical part of our model should be made. First, since the cross section formula for $`c\overline{c}g`$ production has only been calculated in the leading log-$`M^2`$ approximation, an improvement which extends the applicability down to small-$`M^2`$ values would be very desirable. For consistency reasons, one then would need a NLO-calculation of $`c\overline{c}`$ production. Results of such a calculation would also allow to eliminate the cut on the transverse momentum of the final state gluon. Next, since the region of $`x_{}>0.02`$ seems to require secondary exchanges, they should be modeled, in the framework of perturbative QCD, by $`q\overline{q}`$ exchange. Finally, our comparison with data indicates the need of $`c\overline{c}gg`$ final states: such an extension (at least in the leading log-$`M^2`$ approximation) should be fairly straightforward. A successful test of the two-gluon model in DIS Diffraction, apart form providing a description of charm or jet production at HERA, is also of general theoretical interest: the cross section formula for diffractive $`q\overline{q}+ng`$ production contains the perturbative triple Pomeron vertex which is expected to play a vital role in the unitarization of the BFKL approximation. It has been calculated both analytically and numerically, and these calculations can be tested experimentally in DIS diffraction dissociation.