Photoproduction of Heavy Vector Mesons at HERA -- A Testfield for Diffraction

Exclusive diffractive photoproduction of heavy vector mesons (V=phi, J/psi and Upsilon) at HERA is studied in a model employing a dipole Pomeron exchange (P) with an inelastic gamma-P-V vertex. The model is fitted to the data on dsigma/dt, B and elastic sigma for Q^2=0 and beyond the threshold region. The elastic cross sections for both phi and J/psi photoproduction show a moderate increase within the HERA energy region. The flattening of the slope B(s) (little or no shrinkage) for J/psi is not correlated with the slope of the Pomeron trajectory. Estimates for Upsilon photoproduction at HERA are given.