$\gamma^* \gamma^*$ Cross Section at NLO and Properties of the BFKL Evolution at Higher Orders

Abstract

We obtain a simple analytic expression for the high energy $\gamma^* \gamma^*$ scattering cross section at the next-to-leading order in the logarithms-of-energy power counting. To this end we employ the eigenfunctions of the NLO BFKL equation constructed in our previous paper. We also construct the eigenfunctions of the NNLO BFKL kernel and obtain a general form of the solution for the NNLO BFKL equation, which confirms the ansatz proposed in our previous paper.