THE ROLE OF ENERGY-CONSERVATION IN THE BFKL EQUATION

We study a modification to the BFKL equation at zero momentum transfer due to the imposition of energy conservation. The significance of our modification, which enters in the form of an ultraviolet cutoff, is i llustrated directly and is discussed within the context of the gluon d iffusion in k(T). We conclude that, in the kinematic range accessible to HERA, energy conservation leads to a suppression of the semi-hard c ross sections (relative to the BFKL predictions) but that it does not appreciably alter the value of the leading eigenvalue of the BFKL kern el.