Diffractive photoproduction of J/ψ mesons with large momentum transfer at HERA

The diffractive photoproduction of J/psi mesons is measured with the HI detector at the ep collider HERA using an integrated luminosity of 78 pb(-1). The differential cross section dsigma(gammap --> J/psiY)/dt is studied in the range 2 < \t\ < 30 GeV2, where t is the square of the four-momentum transferred at the proton vertex. The cross section is also presented as a function of the photon-proton centre-of-mass energy W-gammap in three t intervals, spanning the range 50 < W-gammap < 200 GeV. A fast rise of the cross section with W-gammap is observed for each t range and the slope for the effective linear Pomeron trajectory is measured to be alpha' = -0.0135 +/- 0.0074(stat.) +/- 0.0051(syst.) GeV-2. The measurements are compared with perturbative QCD models based on BFKL and DGLAP evolution. The data are found to be compatible with s-channel helicity conservation. (C) 200 Published by Elsevier B.V.