  We show that the cross section for diffractive dissociation of a small onium
off a large nucleus at total rapidity $Y$ and requiring a minimum rapidity gap
$Y_{\text{gap}}$ can be identified, in a well-defined parametric limit, with a
simple classical observable on the stochastic process representing the
evolution of the state of the onium, as its rapidity increases, in the form of
color dipole branchings: It formally coincides with twice the probability that
an even number of these dipoles effectively participate in the scattering, when
viewed in a frame in which the onium is evolved to the rapidity
$Y-Y_{\text{gap}}$. Consequently, finding asymptotic solutions to the
Kovchegov-Levin equation, which rules the $Y$-dependence of the diffractive
cross section, boils down to solving a probabilistic problem. Such a
formulation authorizes the derivation of a parameter-free analytical expression
for the gap distribution. Interestingly enough, events in which many dipoles
interact simultaneously play an important role, since the distribution of the
number $k$ of dipoles participating in the interaction turns out to be
proportional to $1/[k(k-1)]$.
