String-Gauge Dual Description of Deep Inelastic Scattering at Small-$x$

Understand

The AdS/CFT correspondence in principle gives a new approach to deep inelastic scattering as formulated by Polchinski and Strassler.

• Subsequently Brower, Polchinski, Strassler and Tan (BPST) computed the strong coupling kernel for the vacuum (or Pomeron) contribution to total cross sections.
• By identifying deep inelastic scattering with virtual photon total cross section, this allows a self consistent description at small-$x$ where the dominant contribution is the vacuum exchange process.
• Here we formulate this contribution and compare it with HERA small-$x$ DIS scattering data.