Exclusive production of $\rho$-mesons in high-energy factorization at HERA and EIC

TL;DR

This paper calculates cross sections for exclusive $ ho$-meson production at high energies, comparing different gluon distributions and providing predictions for future Electron-Ion Collider experiments.

Contribution

It offers a comprehensive analysis of $ ho$-meson production using various unintegrated gluon distributions within high-energy factorization, including comparisons with HERA data and EIC predictions.

Findings

Cross sections vary significantly with different gluon distributions.

Good agreement with HERA data for certain gluon models.

Predictions for EIC kinematics are provided.

Abstract

We calculate cross sections for the exclusive diffractive leptoproduction of $\rho$-mesons, $\gamma^*~p~\to~\rho~p$, within the framework of high-energy factorization. Cross sections for longitudinally and transversally polarized mesons are shown. We employ a wide variety of unintegrated gluon distributions available in the literature and compare to HERA data. The resulting cross sections strongly depend on the choice of unintegrated gluon distribution. We also present predictions for the proton target in the kinematics of the Brookhaven EIC.