Diffraction for non-believers

Abstract

Diffractive reactions involving a hard scale can be understood in terms of quarks and gluons. These reactions have become a valuable tool for investigating the low-x structure of the proton and the behavior of QCD in the high-density regime, and they may provide a clean environment to study or even discover the Higgs boson at the LHC. In this paper we give a brief introduction to the description of diffraction in QCD. We focus on key features studied in ep collisions at HERA and outline challenges for understanding diffractive interactions at the LHC.