Exclusive vs. diffractive vector meson production in DIS at small x or off nuclei

TL;DR

This paper calculates diffractive vector meson production in deep inelastic scattering at small x and off nuclei using the McLerran-Venugopalan model, highlighting differences between exclusive and inelastic diffractive processes.

Contribution

It provides a theoretical analysis of exclusive versus diffractive vector meson production in DIS at small x and nuclear targets within the McLerran-Venugopalan framework.

Findings

Exclusive production dominates at small |t|.

Diffractive production dominates at large |t|.

Model applicable to high parton density regimes.

Abstract

The diffractive production of vector mesons in deep inelastic scattering (DIS) is calculated in the McLerran-Venugopalan model. This is relevant when large parton densities are probed by the virtual photon, as is the case at small Bjorken x or in DIS off nuclei. We investigate differences between the exclusive production (when the target doesn't break up) which dominates at small momentum transfer squared |t|, and the diffractive production (when the target scatters inelastically) which dominates at large |t|.