Exclusive rho^0 production in deep inelastic scattering at HERA 

                          ZEUS Collaboration 

Exclusive rho^0 electroproduction at HERA has been studied with the ZEUS 
detector using 120 pb-1 of integrated luminosity collected during 
1996-2000. The analysis was carried out in the kinematic range of photon 
virtuality 2 < Q2 < 160 GeV2, and gamma* p centre-of-mass energy 
32 < W < 180 GeV. The results include the Q2 and W dependence of the 
gamma*p->rho^0 p cross section and the distribution of the 
squared-four-momentum transfer to the proton. The helicity analysis of the 
decay-matrix elements of the rho^0 was used to study the ratio of the gamma*p 
cross section for longitudinal and transverse photon as a function of Q2 
and W. Finally, an effective Pomeron trajectory was extracted. The 
results are compared to various theoretical predictions.