Deeply-virtual Compton scattering on deuterium and neon at HERMES

We report the first observation of azimuthal beam-spin asymmetries in hard electroproduction of real photons off nuclei. Attributed to the interference between the Bethe-Heitler process and the deeply-virtual Compton scattering process, the asymmetry gives access to the latter at the amplitude level. This process appears to be the theoretically cleanest way to access generalized parton distributions. The data have been accumulated by the HERMES experiment at DESY, scattering the HERA 27.6 GeV positron beam off deuterium and neon gas targets.