Abstract submitted to the
         XXXth International Conference on High Energy Physics
                July 27 - August 2, 2000, Osaka, Japan
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            Exclusive electroproduction of rho mesons at HERA

                               ZEUS Collaboration




                                    Abstract

  Exclusive production of rho mesons has been studied in ep collision
with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of
37pb-1.  The cross section for gamma p -> rho p has been measured for
centre-of-mass energies 32<W<160 GeV and for photon virtualities
2<Q^2<50GeV^2. The ratio of the production cross sections,
R=sigma_L/sigma_T, for longitudinally (sigma_L) and transversely
(sigma_T) polarised virtual photons is determined from the angular
distribution of the decay products of the rho. The Q^2, W and t
dependence of both the total rho production cross section and R are
studied.