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 Balitsky-Fadin-Kuraev-Lipatov (BFKL) equation, when evaluated in non-Abelian physical renormalization schemes with Brodsky-Lepage-Mackenzie (BLM) optimal scale setting, do not exhibit the serious problems encountered in the $$\overline {MS} $$ scheme. A striking feature of the NLO BFKL Pomeron intercept in the BLM approach is that it yields an important approximate conformal invariance.