Probing s-Channel Unitarity With LRG Signatures

Hard diffractive di-jets with large rapidity gap (LRG) signatures are explored following the Tevatron and HERA observations that their production rates are considerably smaller than the pQCD estimates. It is argued that a consistent description of these data can be attained only after s-channel unitarity re-scattering screening corrections are incorporated. To this end a simple and very successful procedure is presented in which information derived from the measured soft total, elastic and diffractive cross sections simplifies the calculation and makes it parameter free. Consequently, we consider LRG hard diffraction an excellent probe to explore the role of s-channel unitarity in high energy soft scattering.