DIFFRACTIVE PRODUCTION OF BOSONS AND REGGEON-PHOTON COUPLING ANALOGY

The gamma -analogy hypothesis for Reggeon couplings, introduced in a previous paper (1974), which relates the couplings of the dominant P, f and Omega exchanges to those of the photon, is applied to the diffractive meson production processes pi p to A2p, Kp to K*p and Kp to K**p. The differential cross sections and density matrices are predicted successfully from fits to pi p and Kp elastic scattering, up to a single free parameter in each case. These parameters are also estimated independently from meson decay couplings (using exchange degeneracy and vector dominance) and the agreement is good to about a factor of two. The ratio of the P:f couplings is in accord with the 'f-dominated pomeron' hypothesis, and contradicts the Gribov-Morrison rule (which forbids P couplings in these processes).