The odderon intercept in perturbative QCD

We construct, in the framework of QCD, the conformally invariant functional whose maximal value gives the J-plane location of the leading singularity of the t-channel partial waves in LLA for diagrams with n reggeized gluons. In the case of the odderon the wave function in the impact-parameter space depends on only one anharmonic ratio and the corresponding functional is significantly simplified. By using a variational method with conformal techniques we show that the odderon J-plane singularity in the LLA approximation of QCD lies above 1. (orig.)