(No) Color in QCD: Charmonium, Charm and Rapidity Gaps

The reason why some data on the production of $\psi$- and $\Upsilon$-states disagree with QCD predictions, occasionally by well over one order of magnitude, is that the traditional method for performing the perturbative calculation of the cross section is simply wrong. The key mistake is to require that the heavy quark pair forms a color singlet at short distances, given that there is an infinite time for soft gluons to readjust the color of the $c \bar c$ pair before it appears as an asymptotic $\psi$ or, alternatively, $D \bar D$ state. We suspect that the same mistake is made in the description of rapidity gaps, i.e.\ the production of a color-neutral quark-antiquark pair, in terms of the exchange of a color neutral gluon pair. The $\psi$ is after all a color neutral $c \bar c$ pair and we will show that it is produced by the same dynamics as $D \bar D$ pairs; its color happens to be bleached by soft final-state interactions. This approach to color is suggestive of the unorthodox prescription for the production of rapidity gaps in deep inelastic scattering, proposed by Buchm\"uller and Hebecker. When applied to the formation of gaps between a pair of high transverse momentum jets in hadron collisions, the soft color approach suggests a formation rate of gaps in gluon-gluon subprocesses which is similar or smaller than in quark-quark induced events. Formation of gaps should increase when increasing transverse momentum or lowering energy, in contrast with 2-gluon exchange Pomeron models.