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Saturation effects in exclusive vector meson production in DIS

Oscar Garcia-Montero1,2,*, Yannik Hoffmann1,†, and Sören Schlichting1

  • *Contact author: garcia@physik.uni-bielefeld.de
  • †Contact author: physics@yhoffmann.eu
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Phys. Rev. D 114, 054017 – Published 14 September, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/bycn-lxzg

Abstract

We investigate saturation effects in exclusive vector meson production in deep inelastic scattering, where we model fluctuations within the target protons as localized color-charge hot spots. Based on the color glass condensate framework and the dipole picture for vector meson production, we examine the dependencies of coherent and incoherent scattering cross sections on the momentum transfer. We draw conclusions on the effectiveness of our hot spot model and the strength of the suppression of the scattering cross sections caused by saturation effects. We find that saturation has mild effects in the given energy and charge-density ranges, but can also show that suppression becomes more prominent as the color-charge density inside the proton increases.

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Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. D 114, 054017– Published 14 September, 2026
  • Received 12 January 2026
  • Accepted 16 July 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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