  We summarize the physics topics which can be addressed by measurements of
high-Q^2 exclusive electroproduction of strange mesons, gamma* N -> phi N, K*
Lambda, K Lambda, K Sigma, at Jefferson Lab with 11 GeV beam energy. The
proposed investigations are aimed both at exploring the reaction mechanism
(dominance of point-like configurations) and extracting information about
baryon structure from the data (generalized parton distributions, or GPDs).
They include (a) probing the t-dependence of the nucleon's gluon GPD
(transverse spatial distribution of gluons) in phi meson production; (b)
separating the nucleon helicity-flip and nonflip quark GPDs in K* Lambda
production with measurement of the Lambda recoil polarization; (c) probing
strangeness polarization in the nucleon in K Lambda and K Sigma production.
These studies rely only on the analysis of cross section ratios, which are less
affected by the theoretical uncertainties of present GPD-based calculations
than absolute cross sections.
