A new determination of the Pomeron intercept in hard processes

A method allowing for a direct comparison of data with theoretical predictions is proposed for forward jet production at HERA. It avoids the reconstruction of multi-parton contributions by expressing the experimental data directly as correction factors on the QCD forward jet cross-section. An application to the determination of the effective Pomeron intercept in the BFKL-LO parametrization from dsigma/dx data at HERA leads to a good fit with a significantly higher effective intercept, alpha_P = 1.43 \pm 0.025(stat.) \pm >.025(syst.), than for proton (total and diffractive) structure functions. It is however less than the value of the Pomeron intercept using dijets with large rapidity intervals obtained at Tevatron. We also evaluate the rapidity veto contribution to the higher order BFKL corrections. The method can be extended to other theoretical inputs.