Color transparency in deeply inelastic diffraction

We suggest a simple physical picture for the diffractive parton distributions that appear in diffractive deeply inelastic scattering. In this picture, partons impinging on the proton can have any transverse separation, but only when the separation is small can they penetrate the proton without breaking it up. By comparing the predictions from this picture with the diffractive data from DESY HERA, we determine rough values for the small separations that dominate the diffraction process. ©2000 The American Physical Society