Hard hadronic diffraction is not hard

Abstract

Hadronic diffractive processes characterised by a hard scale (hard diffraction) contain a nontrivial interplay of hard and soft, nonperturbative interactions, which breaks down factorisation of short and long distances. On the contrary to the expectations based on the factorization hypothesis, assuming that hard diffraction is a higher twist, these processes should be classified as a leading twist. We overview various implications of this important observation for diffractive radiation of Abelian (Drell-Yan, gauge bosons, Higgs boson) and non-Abelian (heavy flavors) particles, as well as direct coalescence into the Higgs boson of the non-perturbative intrinsic heavy flavour component of the hadronic wave function.