Central Higgs Production at LHC from Single–IPomeron–Exchange

Contrary to common perceptions about systems produced in Single–Pomeron– Exchange (SPE) pp interactions, the hard diffractive process discovered at the CERN Sp̄pS–Collider leads to dominant central production of Higgs bosons at the LHC. The rate for SPE production of Higgs bosons is calculated to be 7-9% of the total inclusive Higgs rate. In addition, an SPE measurement program of dijet events is outlined for the early days of LHC running which should answer many fundamental questions about the Pomeron structure and its effective flux factor in the proton. Submitted to European Physical Journal C ∗ Supported by U.S. National Science Foundation Grant PHY-9986703