Quark exchange and quark dynamics in diffractive electroproduction

A Dyson-Schwinger-based model of pomeron exchange is employed to calculate diffractive rho-, phi- and J/psi-meson electroproduction cross sections. It is shown that the magnitude of the current-quark mass m_f of the quark and antiquark inside the produced vector meson determines the onset of the asymptotic-q^2 power-law behavior of the cross section, and how correlated quark-exchanges are included to provide a complete picture of the diffractive electroproduction of light vector mesons applicable over all energies and photon momenta q^2.