Abstract
A model for diffractive dissociation of hadrons into low-mass states is proposed. It is based on a peripheral mechanism with absorption. The absorption effects lead to an important modification of the amplitude by introducing an extra dependence upon momentum transfer and strong slope-mass correlation. A diffractive minimum is predicted for small values of the mass of the produced system. The connection with the crossover effects in diffractive dissociation is discussed. The nucleon dissociation is considered in detail.