# Abstract

## Abstract

We give a brief overview on the present status of Generalized Vector Dominance as appplied to vector-meson production and the total photoabsorption cross section in the region of small $`x_{bj}`$. We comment on how GVD originates from QCD notions such as color transparency.

## 1 THE BASIC QUESTION

Concerning DIS at low values of the scaling variable, $`x_{bj}`$, a basic question has been around for about thirty years : when does the virtual photon behave hadronlike, is it when $`Q^20`$ or is it when $`x_{bj}0`$, but $`Q^2`$ fixed and arbitrarily large? Here, “hadronlike” behaviour includes the transition of the (virtual) photon to (massive) $`q\overline{q}`$ states and their subsequent diffractive forward scattering from the proton, in generalization of the role of the low-lying vector mesons in photoproduction. There is qualitative experimental evidence for this picture of generalized vector dominance (GVD) at low $`x_{bj}`$ and large $`Q^2`$,

* the existence of high-mass diffractive production discovered at HERA ,
* the similarity in shape (thrust, sphericity)  of the states diffractively produced in DIS and the ones produced in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation,
* the persistence of shadowing in $`\gamma ^{}A`$ collisions for $`x_{bj}0`$ at fixed $`Q^2>>0`$ .

Quantitatively, one starts  from the mass dispersion relation for $`\sigma _T(W^2,Q^2)`$,

$$\sigma _T=𝑑m^2𝑑m^2\frac{\rho _T(W^2,m^2,m^2)m^2m^2}{(Q^2+m^2)(Q^2+m^2)},$$
(1)   
and its generalization to the longitudinal photon absorption cross section, $`\sigma _L`$, where the spectral weight function is related to the product of the $`\gamma ^{}q\overline{q}`$ transition (in the initial and the final state in the forward Compton amplitude) and the imaginary part of the $`q\overline{q}`$ proton forward scattering amplitude. Frequently, the diagonal approximation, $`\rho \delta (m^2m^2)`$, is adopted that requires $`\sigma _{q\overline{q}p}1/m_{q\overline{q}}^2`$ to obtain scaling for $`\sigma _T`$.

## 2 DIAGONAL GVD

Lack of space does not permit me to reproduce the phenomenologically successful representation of $`\sigma _{\gamma ^{}p}(W^2,Q^2)`$ at low $`x_{bj}`$, including photoproduction, by GVD. I have to refer to ref. . The diagonal approximation, nevertheless, cannot be the full story. After all, diffraction dissociation exists in hadron reactions, and there is no particular reason in a gluon-exchange picture that would forbid different masses, $`m_{q\overline{q}}m_{q\overline{q}}^{}`$, for ingoing and outgoing $`q\overline{q}`$ states in the forward Compton amplitude.

## 3 OFF-DIAGONAL GVD IN VECTOR-MESON PRODUCTION

Reformulating and extending the off-diagonal GVD ansatz  for elastic vector meson production, recent work  by Schuler, Surrow and myself yields a satisfactory representation of the transverse cross section and the longitudinal-to-transverse ratio, $`R`$, for elastic $`\rho ^0,\varphi `$ and $`J/\mathrm{Psi}`$-production . The theoretical prediction for $`\sigma _{T,\gamma ^{}pVp}`$ is based on

$$\sigma _{T,\gamma ^{}pVp}=\frac{m_{V,T}^4}{(Q^2+m_{V,T}^2)^2}\sigma _{\gamma pVp}(W^2).$$
(2)   
I refer to ref. for the prediction for $`R`$. The inclusion of off-diagonal transitions with destructive interference yields $`m_{V,T}^2<m_V^2`$, where $`m_V`$ stands for the mass of the vector meson being produced. As an example, in fig. 1, I show $`\varphi `$ production. The curves (2-par. fit) are based on $`m_{\varphi ,T}^2=0.40m_\varphi ^2`$ and $`\sigma _{\gamma p\varphi p}=1.0\mu b`$. The theoretical curves for $`J/\mathrm{Psi}`$ production in fig. 2 were obtained by the replacement $`m_\varphi ^2m_{J/\mathrm{Psi}}^2`$ and $`\sigma _{\gamma p\varphi p}\sigma _{\gamma pJ/\mathrm{Psi}p}`$.

## 4 OFF-DIAGONAL GVD FROM QCD

This is work in progress in collaboration with Cvetic and Shoshi . Starting from the QCD notion of color transparency  and an impact-parameter representation for $`\sigma _{\gamma ^{}p}^{tot}`$, we obtain a representation for $`\sigma _{\gamma ^{}p}^{tot}`$ of the form (1). The spectral weight function turns out to be much like the one conjectured a long time ago . Color transparency, as fulfilled in a two-gluon exchange ansatz, provides the destructive interference necessary  for convergence and scaling in (1), thus resolving what has sometimes been called  the “Gribov paradox”.