Hard scattering in the M-theory dual for the QCD string

Conventional superstring amplitudes in flat space exhibits exponential fall off at wide angle in contrast to the power law behavior found in QCD. It has recently been argued by Polchinski and Strassler [hep-th/0109174] that this conflict can be resolved via String/Gauge duality. They carried out their analysis in terms of strings in a deformed AdS(5) background. On the other hand, an equally valid approach to the String/Gauge duality for 4d QCD is based on M-theory in a specific black hole deformation of AdS(7) x S-4. We show that a very natural extension to this phenomenologically interesting M-theory background also gives the correct hard scattering power laws. In the Regge limit we extend the analysis to show the co-existence of both the hard BFKL-like pomeron and the soft pomeron Regge pole. (C) 2003 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.