Diffractive charged meson pair production

Abstract

We investigate the possibility to measure the nonforward gluon distribution function by means of diffractively produced \pi^+\pi^- and K^+K^- pairs in polarized lepton nucleon scattering. The resulting cross sections are small and are dominated by the gluonic contribution. We find relatively large spin asymmetries, both for \pi^+\pi^- and for K^+K^- pairs.

Comments: 15 pages, version with changed kinematical cuts, to be pubished in Phys.Lett.B