EIKONAL DIAGRAMS IN MULTIPARTON SEMIHARD INTERACTIONS

We study the set of eikonal diagrams, derived from perturbative QCD, at the lowest order in the coupling constant and with vacuum quantum number exchange, in the three-body interaction of a high-energy parton with two target partons. The contribution to the semihard component of the inelastic cross section is worked out by evaluating the leading behavior of all the dominant cut diagrams. The different cut amplitudes are shown to be proportional to one another, with the same weights of the cutting rules which have been derived in the context of multi-Pomeron exchange. As a consequence of the dominant configuration in the loop integrals, corresponding to the projectile parton on shell between successive interactions, the process is represented by the simplest probabilistic picture, where the three-body interaction is factorized as the product of two-body interaction probabilities.