Regge models of the proton structure function with and without hard pomeron: A comparative analysis

Abstract.

A comparative phenomenological analysis of Regge models with and without a hard pomeron component is performed using a common set of recently updated data. It is shown that the data at small x do not indicate explicitly the presence of the hard pomeron. Moreover, the models with two soft-pomeron components (simple and double poles in the angular momentum plane) with trajectories having intercept equal to one lead to the best description of the data not only at W >3 GeV and at small x but also at all $x\leq 0.75$ and $Q^2\leq 30000$ GeV$^2$.