Overview of HERMES Results on Exclusive Processes

An overview of HERMES results on measurements of hard exclusive electroproduction of real photons and mesons on hydrogen and deuterium targets is presented. Experimental measurements of hard exclusive processes are commonly described within the formalism of generalized parton distributions (GPDs), which provide a unified description of the structure of hadrons embedding longitudinal-momentum distributions (ordinary PDFs) and transverse-position information (form factors). The HERMES experiment at DESY Hamburg studies hard exclusive processes using polarized electron or positron beams from HERA and internal gas targets. Information about GPDs is gained from the measurements of asymmetries that appear in the azimuthal distributions of produced mesons and photons, together with studies of the azimuthal distribution of the decay products via spin-density matrix elements

Exclusive vector meson production at HERMES

Exclusive electroproduction of vector mesons has been measured on hydrogen and deuterium targets at HERMES using the 27.6 GeV electron/positron beam of HERA. From this process, more information can be obtained about generalized parton distributions (GPDs), which provide a unified description of the structure of hadrons embedding longitudinal-momentum distributions (ordinary PDFs) and transverse-position information (form factors). The study of the azimuthal distribution of the decay products via spin-density matrix elements provide constraints on helicity-amplitudes used to describe exclusive vector-meson production. Recent results from the HERMES experiment on the production of rho, omega and phi mesons will be presented

Exclusive vector meson production at HERMES

Exclusive electroproduction of vector mesons has been measured on hydrogen and deuterium targets at HERMES using the 27.6 GeV electron/positron beam of HERA. From this process, more information can be obtained about generalized parton distributions (GPDs), which provide a unified description of the structure of hadrons embedding longitudinal-momentum distributions (ordinary PDFs) and transverse-position information (form factors). The study of the azimuthal distribution of the decay products via spin-density matrix elements provide constraints on helicity-amplitudes used to describe exclusive vector-meson production. Recent results from the HERMES experiment on the production of rho, omega and phi mesons will be presented

Overview of HERMES Results on Exclusive Processes

An overview of HERMES results on measurements of hard exclusive electroproduction of real photons and mesons on hydrogen and deuterium targets is presented. Experimental measurements of hard exclusive processes are commonly described within the formalism of generalized parton distributions (GPDs), which provide a unified description of the structure of hadrons embedding longitudinal-momentum distributions (ordinary PDFs) and transverse-position information (form factors). The HERMES experiment at DESY Hamburg studies hard exclusive processes using polarized electron or positron beams from HERA and internal gas targets. Information about GPDs is gained from the measurements of asymmetries that appear in the azimuthal distributions of produced mesons and photons, together with studies of the azimuthal distribution of the decay products via spin-density matrix elements

Hard Two-Photon Contribution to Elastic Lepton-Proton Scattering Determined by the OLYMPUS Experiment

The OLYMPUS collaboration reports on a precision measurement of the positron-proton to electron-proton elastic cross section ratio, $\it R_{2 \gamma}$, a direct measure of the contribution of hard two-photon exchange to the elastic cross section. In the OLYMPUS measurement, 2.01 GeV electron and positron beams were directed through a hydrogen gas target internal to the DORIS storage ring at DESY. A toroidal magnetic spectrometer instrumented with drift chambers and time-of-flight scintillators detected elastically scattered leptons in coincidence with recoiling protons over a scattering angle range of $\approx$ 20° to 80°. The relative luminosity between the two beam species was monitored using tracking telescopes of interleaved GEM and MWPC detectors at 12°, as well as symmetric Møller/Bhabha calorimeters at 1:29°. A total integrated luminosity of $4.5 fb^{-1}$ was collected. In the extraction of $\it R_{2\gamma}$, radiative effects were taken into account using a Monte Carlo generator to simulate the convolutions of internal bremsstrahlung with experiment-specific conditions such as detector acceptance and reconstruction efficiency. The resulting values of $\it R_{2\gamma}$, presented here for a wide range of virtual photon polarization 0:456 < $\epsilon$< 0:978, are smaller than hadronic two-photon exchange calculations predict, but are consistent with phenomenological models

Beam-helicity asymmetries for single-hadron production in semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering from unpolarized hydrogen and deuterium targets

A measurement of beam-helicity asymmetries for single-hadron production in deep-inelastic scattering is presented. Data from the scattering of 27.6 GeV electrons and positrons off gaseous hydrogen and deuterium targets were collected by the HERMES experiment. The asymmetries are presented separately as a function of the Bjorken scaling variable, the hadron transverse momentum and the fractional energy for charged pions and kaons as well as for protons and anti-protons. These asymmetries are also presented as a function of the three aforementioned kinematic variables simultaneously