A SCENARIO FOR HIGH-ENERGY GAMMA-GAMMA INTERACTIONS

A real photon has a complicated nature, whereby it may remain unresolv ed or fluctuate into a vector meson or a perturbative q (q) over bar p air. In gamma gamma events, this gives three by three combinations of the nature of the two incoming photons, and thus six distinct event cl asses. The properties of these classes are partly constrained by the c hoices already made in our related gamma p model. It is therefore poss ible to predict the energy-dependence of the cross section for each of the six components separately. The total cross section gives support to the idea that a simple factorized ansatz with a pomeron and a regge on term can be a good approximation. Event properties undergo a stepwi se evolution from pp to gamma p to gamma gamma events, with larger cha rged multiplicity, more transverse energy flow and a higher jet rate i n the latter process.