Off-diagonal helicity density matrix elements for vector mesons produced in polarized e+e- processes

Abstract

Final state quark-antiquark interactions give origin to non zero values of the off-diagonal element rho_{1,-1} of the helicity density matrix of vector mesons produced in e+e- annihilations, as confirmed by recent OPAL data on Phi, D^* and K^*'s. New predictions are given for rho_{1,-1} of several mesons produced at large x_E and small p_T -- i.e. collinear with the parent jet -- in the annihilation of polarized e+ and e-; the results depend strongly on the elementary dynamics and allow further non trivial tests of the Standard Model.