Search for large rapidity gap events in e+e- annihilation

We Investigate the cross-section for the production of a low mass colour-singlet cluster in e^+ e^- annihilation with a large rapidity gap between the colour-singlet cluster and the other jets. It is argued that such events are the cross-channel analogue of large-rapidity events in deep-inelastic scattering, and therefore could in principle be used to investigate the analytic continuation of the BFKL pomeron to the positive t kinematic regime, where one would expect the trajectory to pass through glueball states. The cross section can be calculated in perturbative QCD, so that the infrared scale arising from non-perturbative effects which prevents an exponential fall-off with rapidity gap in the case of deep-inelastic scattering, is absent in e^+ e^- annihilation. Correspondingly, the cross-section for such events decreases rapidly with increasing rapidity gap.We Investigate the cross-section for the production of a low mass colour-singlet cluster in $e~+ e~-$ annihilation with a large rapidity gap between the colour-singlet cluster and the other jets. It is argued that such events are the cross-channel analogue of large-rapidity events in deep-inelastic scattering, and therefore could in principle be used to investigate the analytic continuation of the BFKL pomeron to the positive $t$ kinematic regime, where one would expect the trajectory to pass through glueball states. The cross section can be calculated in perturbative QCD, so that the infrared scale arising from non-perturbative effects which prevents an exponential fall-off with rapidity gap in the case of deep-inelastic scattering, is absent in $e~+ e~-$ annihilation. Correspondingly, the cross-section for such events decreases rapidly with increasing rapidity gap