The diffractive production of vector mesons ep→eVMY, with VM=ρ0, ω, ϕ, J/ψ, ψ′ or ϒ and with Y being either the scattered proton or a low mass hadronic system, has been extensively investigated at HERA. HERA offers a unique opportunity to study the dependences of diffractive processes on different scales: the mass of the vector meson, mVM, the centre-of-mass energy of the γp system, W, the photon virtuality, Q2 and the four-momentum transfer squared at the proton vertex, |t|. Strong interactions can be investigated in the transition from the hard to the soft regime, where the confinement of quarks and gluons occurs.
Low mass vector meson production in pp and Pb-Pb collisions measured with ALICE at the LHC