Gluons in the hadronicS matrix

We derive a theoretical explanation of the similarities which have been experimentally observed between final state distributions in soft processes (K ^? p interactions andpp collisions at ISR) and hard processes (e ⁺ e ^? annihilations and deep inelastic scattering). The theoretical framework is the correspondence between QCD and dual topological unitarization (DTU), which expresses confinement as the equivalence of the hadron and parton bases to account for unitarity. Starting from the interpretation of the zero handle topology in DTU in terms of the naive quark parton model, we show how to characterize gluons in the hadron basis: primordial gluons are associated with the one handle topology, and the cascading of hard gluons is related to the sum of all higher topologies in DTU. We get this way a QCD interpretation of the reggeon calculus which is the theoretical framework of soft hadronic processes at asymptotic energies.