Coherent photoproduction of vector mesons on deuterium at 5. 5 GeV

Coherent photoproduction of vector mesons rho/sup 0/, ..omega.., phi, and rho' on deuterium was studied using the SLAC 82-in. bubble chamber exposed to linearly polarized photons at 5.5 GeV. The reaction channel ..gamma..d ..-->.. ..pi../sup +/..pi../sup -/d was studied in detail. Nine independent density-matrix parameters have been determined from the rho/sup 0/ decay distribution. rho production in this channel was found to proceed almost completely through natural-parity exchange for t abs. value of< or = 0.25 GeV/sup 2/ and conserve s-channel c.m. helicity for abs. value of t < or = 0.15 GeV/sup 2/. A measurement of differential cross section for this channel has been made. (AIP)