THE ODDERON INTERCEPT IN PERTURBATIVE QCD

We construct, in the framework of QCD, the conformally invariant funct ional whose maximal value gives the J-plane location of the leading si ngularity of the t-channel partial waves in LLA for diagrams with n re ggeized gluons. In the case of the odderon the wave function in the im pact-parameter space depends on only one anharmonic ratio and the corr esponding functional is significantly simplified. By using a variation al method with conformal techniques we show that the odderon J-plane s ingularity in the LLA approximation of QCD lies above 1.