The production of $\phi$ mesons in the reaction $e~{+}p \rightarrow e~{+} \phi p$ ($\phi \rightarrow K~{+}K~{-}$), for $7 < Q~2 < 25$ GeV$~2$ and for virtual photon-proton centre of mass energies ($W$) in the range 42-134 GeV, has been studied with the ZEUS detector at HERA. When compared to lower energy data at similar $Q~2$, the results show that the $\gamma~*p \rightarrow \phid p$ cross section rises strongly with $W$. This behaviour is similar to that previously found for the $\gamma~*p \rightarrow \rho~0 p$ cross section. This strong dependence cannot be explained by production through soft pomeron exchange. It is, however, consistent with perturbative QCD expectations, where it reflects the rise of the gluon momentum density in the proton at small $x$. The ratio of $\sigma (\phi) / \sigma (\rho~0)$, which has previously been determined by ZEUS to be 0.065 $\pm$ 0.013 (stat.) in photoproduction at a mean $W$ of 70 GeV, is measured to be 0.18 $\pm $ 0.05 (stat.) $\pm$ 0.03 (syst.) at a mean $Q~2$ of 12.3 GeV$~2$ and mean $W$ of $\approx$ 100 GeV and is thus approaching at large $Q~2$ the value of 2/9 predicted from the quark charges of the vector mesons and a flavour independent production mechanism.
No description provided.
Additional 32 PCT Systematic error.
Additional 32 PCT Systematic error.
The cross section for the elastic photoproduction of \r0\ mesons ($\gamma p \rightarrow \rho~0 p$) has been measured with the H1 detector at HERA for two average photon-proton centre-of-mass energies of 55 and 187GeV. TheFcenterline lower energy point was measured by observing directly the $\rho~{0}$ decay giving a cross section of $9.1\pm 0.9\,(\stat)\pm 2.5\,(\syst)\;\mu$b. The logarithmic slope parameter of the differential cross section, ${\rm d}\sigma/{\rm d}t$, is found to be $10.9 \pm 2.4\,(\stat) \pm 1.1\,(\syst)\;$GeV$~{-2}$. The \r0\ decay polar angular distribution is found to be consistent with s-channel helicity conservation. The higher energy cross section was determined from analysis of the lower part of the hadronic invariant mass spectrum of diffractive photoproduction and found to be $13.6\pm 0.8\,(\stat)\pm 2.4\,(\syst)\;\mu$b.
PI+ PI- cross section.
RHO0 cross section by selecting Mpipi to lie between 2Mpi and Mrho + 5width0.
No description provided.