Inelastic Electron-Nucleon Scattering and the Pomeranchuk Singularity

Abstract

It is suggested that the amplitude for virtual Compton scattering at large spacelike photon masses is completely dominated at all energies by the Pomeranchukon exchange or diffraction mechanism and that all the contributions of $s$-channel ${N}^{*}$ resonances and "ordinary" $t$-channel exchanges decrease rapidly with ${q}^{2}$. Experimental and theoretical implications of this conjecture are discussed.