HIGH-ENERGY BEHAVIOR IN A NON-ABELIAN GAUGE-THEORY .1. -]M IN THE LEADING IN S APPROXIMATION

This is the first part of an attempt to find a unitary high-energy description of a spontaneously broken non-Abelian gauge theory. In this paper we calculate the high-energy behaviour of n → m amplitudes in the leading ln s approximation. We start from tree approximations and then only use dispersion relations and unitarity equations for elastic and inelastic amplitudes in the multi-Regge limit. The resulting amplitudes have multi-Regge behaviour with simple pole exchange, and satisfy s-channel unitarity in all channels. There is, however, no vacuum quantum number exchange (pomeron) in this approximation. We briefly outline a scheme which may lead to a unitary description of the pomeron. © 1979.