Coherence effects in diffractive electroproduction of ρ mesons from nuclei

A systematic multiple scattering formalism for vector meson electroproduction from nuclei is developed, with emphasis on the formation, propagation and hadronization scales for quark–gluon fluctuations of the virtual high-energy photon. The theory is compared to HERMES measurements of ρ electroproduction on 14N. The nuclear transparency as a function of the vector meson propagation length is well reproduced.