Pomeron - Graviton duality

The high energy behavior of the hadronic total cross sections remains one of the biggest unsolved problems in the theory of the strong interactions. The problem is that, even at the very high energies s → ∞, there is a range of scales probed in such a process. Many exclusive processes with additional large scale can be treated using perturbative methods thanks to the property of asymptotic freedom and the factorization theorems. On the other hand, the total cross sections are notoriously difficult to evaluate from the first principles and therefore one has to rely on phenomenological models. The high energy asymptotics of the hadronic interactions was first investigated within the S-matrix and Regge theory. Powerful methods based on few general principles were elaborated, despite the lack of information on the microscopic dynamics. The high energy limit in QCD was calculated within the leading logarithmic approximation in the logarithms of energy. The result was the famous BFKL Pomeron, which indeed has the Regge