Scanning the BFKL pomeron in elastic production of vector mesons at HERA

Elastic production of vector mesons γ ^∗ N→V N is the pomeron-exchange dominated diffractive reaction with much potential of probing the BFKL pomeron. The BFKL pomeron can conveniently be described in terms of the dipole cross section which is a solution of the generalized BFKL equation. In this paper we discuss, how the energy and Q² dependence of elastic production of vector mesons at HERA will allow scanning the dipole cross section as a function of dipole size r. We show that determination of the intercept of the BFKL pomeron requires measuring the ϱ ⁰ and J/ Ψ production at Q²∼(100-200) GeV ² and/or the quasireal photoproduction of the γ. We present predictions for the effective intercept in the kinematic range of the forthcoming HERA experiments, which can shed much light on the nonperturbative component of the pomeron.