Probing chiral-odd GPDs in diffractive electroproduction of two vector mesons

We consider the electroproduction of two vector mesons with a large rapidity gap between them on a nucleon target in the process gamma*N --> rho(1)rho(2)N'. We calculate the Born term for this process within the collinear factorization framework. The resulting scattering amplitude may be represented as a convolution of an impact factor describing the gamma* --> rho(1) transition and an amplitude describing the N --> rho(2)N' transition. The latter amplitude is analogous to deeply virtual electroproduction of a meson, the virtual photon being replaced by two gluon (Pomeron) exchange. The long distance part of this amplitude is described by generalized parton distributions (GPD) and meson light-cone distributions. The selection of a transversely polarized vector meson rho(2) provides the first feasible selective access to chiral-odd GPD. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.