DIFFRACTION 2002: Interpretation of the New Diffractive Phenomena in Quantum Chromodynamics and in the S-Matrix Theory

Diffraction 2002, International Workshop on Diffraction in High-Energy Physics and NATO Advanced Research Workshop, was held in Alushta (Crimea, Ukraine) from August 31 to September 5, 2002, in a beautiful resort "Dubna" near the Black Sea. The Workshop was the second of the series "Diffraction" started two years earlier in Cetraro, Italy. The Workshop was organized by an International Committee including the organizers of Diffraction 2000 coming from Universita della Calabria (Italy) and "local" organizers from Dubna, Kiev and Novosibirsk research institutions. There were 46 participants, coming from 14 countries. The purpose of the Workshop was to review the experimental and theo- retical aspects of Diffraction in high-energy physics and to discuss the new developments. There were talks devoted to Diffraction in hadron-hadron collisions, in lepton-hadron collisions and in Quantum Chromodynamics. This volume contains the written version of 29 talks, that arrived before the deadline and ordered, somewhat arbitrarily, as experimental, phenomeno- logical and theoretical ones. We thank all the speakers and attendees for their contribution to the scientific success of the Workshop.The Secretariat of the Workshop was admirably held by AlIa Borisenko, Tania Korzhinskay, Elena Rusakovich, Olga Ugrumova and Zoya Vakhnenko, whom we thank for their invaluable assistance. We also thank the stuff of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Physics and in particular Prof. P.N. Bogolyubov for his professional performance in orga- nizing and managing the computer service. The invaluable financial support of NATO, grant ARW 977335, is grate- fully acknowledged.