Review of High Energy Diffraction in Real and Virtual Photon Proton scattering at HERA

Abstract

The electron-proton collider HERA at DESY opened the door for the study of diffraction in real and virtual photon-proton scattering at center-of-mass energies W up to 250 GeV and for large negative mass squared -Q^2 of the virtual photon up to Q^2 = 1600 GeV^2. At W = 220 GeV and Q^2 = 4 GeV^2, diffraction accounts for about 15% of the total virtual photon proton cross section decreasing to ~5% at Q^2 = 200 GeV^2. An overview of the results obtained by the experiments H1 and ZEUS on the production of neutral vectormesons and on inclusive diffraction up to the year 2008 is presented.