Coherence Effects in Diffractive Electroproduction of rho Mesons from Nuclei

Abstract

A systematic multiple scattering formalism for vector meson electroproduction from nuclei is developed, with emphasis on the formation, propagation and hadronization scales for quark-gluon fluctuations of the virtual high-energy photon. The theory is compared to HERMES measurements of rho electroproduction on 14N. The nuclear transparency as a function of the vector meson propagation length is well reproduced.

Comments: 21 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Nuclear Physics A