Electroproduction of phi(1020) mesons at 1.4 <= Q(2) <= 3.8 GeV2 measured with the CLAS spectrometer

Electroproduction of exclusive {phi} vector mesons has been studied with the CLAS detector in the kinematic range 1.4{<=}Q{sup 2}{<=}3.8 GeV{sup 2},0.0{<=}t{sup '}{<=}3.6 GeV{sup 2}, and 2.0{<=}W{<=}3.0 GeV. The scaling exponent for the total cross section as 1/(Q{sup 2}+M{sub {phi}}{sup 2}){sup n} was determined to be n=2.49{+-}0.33. The slope of the four-momentum transfer t{sup '} distribution is b{sub {phi}}=0.98{+-}0.17 GeV{sup -2}. Under the assumption of s-channel helicity conservation, we determine the ratio of longitudinal to transverse cross sections to be R=0.86{+-}0.24. A two-gluon exchange model is able to reproduce the main features of the data.