Scaling violations of diffractive structure functions: operator approach

A quantum field theoretic treatment of inclusive deep-inelastic diffractive scattering is given. The process can be described in the general framework of non-forward scattering processes using the light-cone expansion in the generalized Bjorken region. Evolution equations of the diffractive hadronic matrix elements are derived at the level of the twist-2 contributions and are compared to those of inclusive deep-inelastic forward scattering (DIS). The diffractive parton densities are obtained as projections of two-variab le parton distributions. We also comment on the higher twist contributions in the light-cone expansion. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.