Hard leptoproduction of charged vector mesons - art. no. 017501

We present an analysis of twist-2, leading order QCD amplitudes for hard ex clusive leptoproduction of charged vector mesons. These processes are deter mined by nonforward parton distribution functions which are nondiagonal in quark flavor. We derive relations between flavor diagonal and nondiagonal d istribution functions based on isospin symmetry. Furthermore, we discuss ge neral features of rho(+) and rho(-) production cross sections, and present estimates based on a simple model for nonforward distribution functions. [S 0556-2821(98)00123-4].