The QCD Pomeron with Optimal Renormalization

It is shown that the next-to-leading order (NLO) corrections to the QCD Pomeron intercept obtained from the BFKL equation, when evaluated in non-Abelian physical renormalization schemes with BLM optimal scale setting do not exhibit the serious problems encountered in the $\overline{\mbox{MS}}$-scheme. A striking feature of the NLO BFKL Pomeron intercept in the BLM approach is its rather weak dependence on the virtuality of the reggeized gluon. This remarkable property yields an important approximate conformal invariance. The results obtained provide an opportunity for applications of NLO BFKL resummation to high-energy phenomenology.