Theory of the heavy pomeron

The small shrinkage of the diffraction peak is used for studying the pomeron structure in the intermediate non-asymptotic energy region. Even in this region the cross-sections are shown to be factorized and basically determined by a pole and by enhanced cuts. The total cross sections rise as (ln ln E)2 and the interaction radius as ln ln E. The general character of inelastic processes is the same as in the strong coupling theory for the asymptotic region. (Auth.)