Quasi-elastic electroproduction of charged \rho -mesons on nucleons

The electroproduction of charged $ \rho$ -mesons on the nucleon at intermediate energy is discussed for quasi-elastic kinematics. It is shown that at these kinematics both the longitudinal $ \sigma_{{L}}^{}$ and transverse $ \sigma_{{T}}^{}$ cross-sections are dominated by the $ \rho$ -meson t -pole contribution, and thus the corresponding dσ _L(T)/dt data can give a valuable information on the $ \rho$ -meson component of the nucleon cloud. The differential cross-sections for the reaction p(e, e ^′ $ \rho^{+}_{}$ )n at Q ² = 2 , 3.5GeV^2 and at the invariant mass W = 3 and 4GeV are calculated on the basis of quasi-elastic knockout mechanism with form factors. Questions about the gauge invariance of the electroproduction amplitude are considered and it is noted an important difference between photo- and electroproduction amplitudes.