Evidence for a Dual Triple-Pomeron Coupling from Inclusive Intersecting-Storage-Rings Data

The proton inclusive spectrum in the diffractive region is described by a triple-Pomeron term with no free parameters. Our input is the cross sections for the production of $N^{*}\text{'} \mathrm{s}$ at CERN accelerator energies, which, according to duality rules for Pomeron-particle reactions, are related to the triple-Pomeron coupling via finite-mass sum rules. The extrapolated value of this coupling to $t=0\mathrm{}$ induces rather weak constraints on the parameters of the Pomeron, and no sharp turnover of the proton spectrum near $t=0\mathrm{}$ is expected.