Diffractive meson production from virtual photons with odd charge-parity exchange

We calculate the cross section of diffractive charge-parity C=+1 neutral meson production in virtual photon proton collision at high energies. Due to the opposite C-parities of photon and meson M"+ (M"+=#eta#_c, #pi#"0, a_2) this process probes the t-channel C=-1 odderon exchange which is described here as noninteracting three-gluon exchange. Estimates for the cross section of inelastic diffractive process #gamma#"*p #-># #eta#_cX_p are presented. The total cross section of diffractive #eta#_c meson photoproduction is found to be 47 pb. The cross sections for the diffractive production of light mesons (#pi#"0, a_2) in #gamma#"*p collisions are of the same order if the photon virtuality Q"2 is m"2_c. (orig.)SIGLEAvailable from FIZ Karlsruhe / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekBundesministerium fuer Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie, Bonn (Germany)DEGerman