Off-diagonal generalized vector dominance and inelastic ep scattering

By also taking into account off-diagonal contributions to the virtual forward Compton amplitude, scaling in ep scattering is obtained from scaling of the total cross section for e⁺e^? annihilation into hadrons. The parameter which sets the scale for the q² dependence in ep scattering is calculated to be $\text{m}{}^2\text{? 0.61 m}{}_{\mathrm{?}}{}^2\text{? 0.36}\text{GeV}{}^2$.