PROBING LUMPS OF WEE PARTONS IN DEEP-INELASTIC SCATTERING

Recently, the ZEUS Collaboration has reported on several remarkable pr operties of events with a large rapidity gap in deep inelastic scatter ing. We suggest that the mechanism underlying these events is the scat tering of electrons off lumps of wee partons inside the proton. Based on an effective lagrangian approach the Q2-, x- and W-distributions ar e evaluated. For sufficiently small invariant mass of the detected had ronic system, the mechanism implies leading twist behaviour. The x- an d W-distributions are determined by the Lipatov exponent which governs the behaviour of parton densities at small x.