Anomalous t-dependence in diffractive electroproduction of 2S radially excited light vector mesons at HERA

Abstract

Within the color dipole gBFKL dynamics applied to the diffraction slope we predict an anomalous t dependence of the differential cross section as a function of energy and Q^2 for production of radially excited V'(2S) light vector mesons in contradiction with a well known standard monotonous t- behaviour for V(1S) mesons. The origin of this phenomenon is based on the interplay of the nodal structure of V'(2S) radial wave function with the energy and dipole size dependence of the color dipole cross section and of the diffraction slope. We present how a different position of the node in V'(2S) wave function leads to a different form of anomalous t- behaviour of the differential cross section and discuss a possibility how to determine this position from the low energy and HERA data.