Hard exclusive electroproduction of <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" altimg="si1.gif" overflow="scroll"><mml:msup><mml:mi>π</mml:mi><mml:mo>+</mml:mo></mml:msup><mml:msup><mml:mi>π</mml:mi><mml:mo>−</mml:mo></mml:msup></mml:math> pairs

Hard exclusive electroproduction of $\pi^+\pi^-$ pairs off hydrogen and deuterium targets has been studied by the HERMES experiment at DESY. Legendre moments $$ and $$ of the angular distributions of $\pi^+$ mesons in the center-of-mass frame of the pair have been measured for the first time. Their dependence on the $\pi^+\pi^-$ invariant mass can be understood as being due to the interference between relative $P$-wave (isovector) and $S,D$-wave (isoscalar) states of the two pions. % The increase in magnitude of $$ as Bjorken $x$ increases is interpreted in the framework of Generalized Parton Distributions as an enhancement of flavour {non-singlet} $q\bar{q}$ exchange for larger values of $x$, which leads to a sizable admixture of isoscalar and isovector pion pairs. % In addition, the interference between {$P$-wave} and {$D$-wave} states separately for transverse and longitudinal pion pairs has been studied. The data indicate that at {$\la Q^2 \ra = 3 $ GeV$^2$} higher twist effects can be as large as the leading-twist longitudinal component