On the determination of double diffraction dissociation cross section at HERA

The excitation of the proton into undetected multiparticle states (double diffraction dissociation) is an important background to single diffractive deep-inelastic processes ep → epρ, epJ/Ψ, epX at HERA. We present estimates of the admixture of the double diffraction dissociation events in all diffractive events. We find that in the J/Ψ photoproduction, electroproduction of the ρ at large Q and diffraction dissociation of real and virtual photons into high mass states X the contamination of the double diffraction dissociation can be as large as ∼ 30%, thus affecting substantially the experimental tests of the pomeron exchange in deep inelastic scattering at HERA. We discuss a possibility of tagging the double diffraction dissociation by neutrons observed in the forward neutron calorimeter. We present evaluations of the spectra of neutrons and efficiency of neutron tagging based on the experimental data for diffractive processes in the proton-proton collisions.