A Hidden Local Symmetry Approach to Rho Meson Photoproduction

We study photoproduction of rho mesons in a model of hidden local symmetry. The rho meson is introduced as a hidden gauge boson and a phenomenological rho meson-nucleon Lagrangian is constructed respecting chiral symmetry. It is shown that the sigma exchange interaction is needed for neutral rho meson photoproduction to reproduce the experimental cross sections. For charged rho meson photoproduction, the model takes into account the rho meson magnetic moments from the three-point vertex in the kinetic terms. We show that the magnetic moment of the charged rho meson has a significant effect on the total cross sections through the rho meson exchange process, which is proportional to the energy of the photon. The t-channel dominance may be used for the study of structures of various unstable particles.