Exclusive φ Meson Electroproduction with CLAS12

The Continuous Electron Accelerator Facility Large Angle Spectrometer detector (CLAS12) at Jefferson Lab

in Virginia has completed a successful period of data acquisition of a longitudinally polarized 10.6 GeV electron

beam on a 5 cm unpolarized liquid hydrogen target. A program to study exclusive φ meson electroproduction is

underway as this is an ideal channel for quantifying the gluonic properties of the nucleon. This analysis focuses

on the exclusive reaction ep → e'p'K⁺K^-. The analysis strategy consists of two steps: first to establish the

approach to the small-size regime by testing model-independent features of the reaction mechanism, such as the

Q²-independence of the t-slopes; then in a second step, extracting the gluonic size in the valence region as a

function of x_B. This contribution will present a study to extract the beam spin asymmetry for this reaction.

Ultimately, the asymmetry will shed light on the structure functions of the interference terms from the longitudinal

and transverse cross section.