NLO inclusive jet production in $k_T$--factorization

Abstract

The inclusive production of jets in the central region of rapidity is studied in $k_T$-factorization at next-to-leading order (NLO) in QCD perturbation theory. Calculations are performed in the Regge limit making use of the NLO BFKL results. A jet cone definition is introduced and a proper phase--space separation into multi-Regge and quasi-multi-Regge kinematic regions is carried out. Two situations are discussed: scattering of highly virtual photons, which requires a symmetric energy scale to separate the impact factors from the gluon Green's function, and hadron-hadron collisions, where a non--symmetric scale choice is needed.