Electroweak vector boson production at the LHC as a probe of mechanisms of diffraction.

We show that the double diffractive electroweak vector boson production in the pp collisions at the LHC is an ideal probe of QCD based mechanisms of diffraction. Assuming the resolved Pomeron model with flavor symmetric parton distributions, the W production asymmetry in rapidity equals exactly zero. In other approaches, like the soft color interaction model, in which soft gluon exchanges are responsible for diffraction, the asymmetry is nonzero and equal to that in the inclusive W production. In the same way, the ratio of the W to Z boson production is independent of rapidity in the models with resolved Pomeron in contrast to the predictions of the soft color interaction model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]