Diffractive excitation of heavy flavors : Leading twist mechanisms

Diffractive production of heavy flavors is calculated within the light-cone dipole approach. Novel leading twist mechanisms are proposed, which involve both short and long transverse distances inside the incoming hadron. Nevertheless, the diffractive cross section turns out to be sensitive to the primordial transverse momenta of projectile gluons, rather than to the hadronic size. Our calculations agree with the available data for diffractive production of charm and beauty, and with the observed weak variation of the diffraction-to-inclusive cross section ratios as function of the hard scale.