Diffractive phenomena

The most recent theoretical and experimental results in the field of diffractive scattering are reviewed. A parallel between the two current theoretical approaches to diffraction, the DIS picture in the Breit frame and the dipole picture in the target frame, is given, accompanied by a description of the models to which the data are compared. A recent calculation of the rescattering corrections, which hints at the universality of the diffractive parton distribution functions, is presented. The concept of generalized parton distributions is discussed together with the first measurement of the processes which might give access to them. Particular emphasis is given to the HERA data, to motivate why hard diffraction in deep inelastic scattering is viewed as an unrivalled instrument to shed light on the still obscure aspects of hadronic interactions.