Saturation in diffractive deep inelastic scattering -: art. no. 114023

We successfully describe the DESY HERA data on diffractive deep inelastic scattering using a saturation model which has been applied in our earlier analysis of the inclusive ep-scattering data. No further parameters are needed. Saturation already turned out to be essential in describing the transition from large to small values of Q(2) in inclusive scattering. It is even more important for diffractive processes and naturally leads to a constant ratio of the diffractive versus inclusive cross sections. We present an extensive discussion of our results as well as detailed comparison with data. [S0556-2821(99)02221-3].