Exclusive processes with a leading neutron in $ep$ collisions

In this paper we extend the color dipole formalism to the study of exclusive processes associated with a leading neutron in $ep$ collisions at high energies. The exclusive $\rho$, $\phi$ and $J/\Psi$ production, as well as the Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering, are analysed assuming a diffractive interaction between the color dipole and the pion emitted by the incident proton. We compare our predictions with the HERA data on $\rho$ production and estimate the magnitude of the absorption corrections. We show that the color dipole formalism is able to describe the current data. Finally, we present our estimate for the exclusive cross sections which can be studied at HERA and in future electron-proton colliders.