Exclusive electroproduction of J/psi mesons at HERA

Abstract

The exclusive electroproduction of J/psi mesons, ep->epJ/psi, has been studied with the ZEUS detector at HERA for virtualities of the exchanged photon in the ranges 0.15<Q^2<0.8 GeV^2 and 2<Q^2<100 GeV^2 using integrated luminosities of 69 pb^-1 and 83 pb^-1, respectively.The photon-proton centre-of-mass energy was in the range 30<W<220 GeV and the squared four-momentum transfer at the proton vertex |t|<1.The cross sections and decay angular distributions are presented as functions of Q^2, W and t. The effective parameters of the Pomeron trajectory are in agreement with those found in J/psi photoproduction. The spin-density matrix elements, calculated from the decay angular distributions, are consistent with the hypothesis of s-channel helicity conservation. The ratio of the longitudinal to transverse cross sections, sigma_L/sigma_T, grows with Q^2, whilst no dependence on W or t is observed. The results are in agreement with perturbative QCD calculations and exhibit a strong sensitivity to the gluon distribution in the proton.