Hadronic properties of the photon

Abstract

Currently it is no doubt that high energy photons (real or virtual) have a hadronic component leading to photon shadowing in its interaction with nuclei. We shortly consider the difficulties appeared in the models like vector dominance model (VDM) and stress that these problems can be solved in a color dipole model inspired by Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). From the other hand, the color dipole model allows one to investigate the impact of vector meson polarization on their interaction with nucleons and nuclei, the challenge which is crucial for studying, for instance, such a fundamental effect as color transparency.