In this paper we study the inelastic quarkonium photoproduction in coherent $pp/pPb/PbPb$ interactions. Considering the ultra relativistic hadrons as a source of photons, we estimate the total $ h_1 + h_2 rightarrow h otimes V + X$ ($V = J/Psi$ and $Upsilon$) cross sections and rapidity distributions at LHC energies. Our results demonstrate that the experimental analysis of this process can be used to understand the underlying mechanism governing heavy quarkonium production.
We analyse in detail the role of additional hadron-hadron interactions in elastic photon-initiated (PI) production at the LHC, both in $pp$ and heavy ion collisions. We first demonstrate that the source of difference between our predictions and other results in the literature for PI muon pair production is dominantly due to an unphysical cut that is imposed in these latter results on the dimuon-hadron impact parameter. We in addition show that this is experimentally disfavoured by the shape of the muon kinematic distributions measured by ATLAS in ultraperipheral PbPb collisions. We then consider the theoretical uncertainty due to the survival probability for no additional hadron-hadron interactions, and in particular the role this may play in the tendency for the predicted cross sections to lie somewhat above ATLAS data on PI muon pair production, in both $pp$ and PbPb collisions. This difference is relatively mild, at the $sim 10%$ level, and hence a very good control over the theory is clearly required. We show that this uncertainty is very small, and it is only by taking very extreme and rather unphysical variations in the modelling of the survival factor that this tension can be removed. This underlines the basic, rather model independent, point that a significant fraction of elastic PI scattering occurs for hadron-hadron impact parameters that are simply outside the range of QCD interactions, and hence this sets a lower bound on the survival factor in any physically reasonable approach. Finally, other possible origins for this discrepancy are discussed.
Exclusive vector meson photoproduction associated with a leading baryon ($B = n, Delta^+, Delta^0$) in $pp$ and $pA$ collisions at RHIC and LHC energies is investigated using the color dipole formalism and taking into account nonlinear effects in the QCD dynamics. In particular, we compute the cross sections for $rho$, $phi$ and $J/Psi$ production together with a $Delta$ and compare the predictions with those obtained for a leading neutron. Our results show that the $V + Delta$ cross section is almost 30 % of the $V + n$ one. Our results also show that a future experimental analysis of these processes is, in principle, feasible and can be useful to study leading particle production.
In this contribution, we study the inclusive and diffractive $eta_{c}$ photoproduction in $pp$ and $pPb$ ultra-peripheral collisions (UPCs) at the LHC Run 2 energies. The quarkonium production is studied using nonrelativistic quantum chromodynamics (NRQCD) formalism. We present predictions for rapidity and transverse momentum distributions for the $eta_c$ photoproduction and present our estimate for the total cross sections at the Run 2 energies.
Using the data on coherent $J/psi$ photoproduction in Pb-Pb ultraperipheral collisions (UPCs) obtained in Runs 1 and 2 at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), we determined with a good accuracy the nuclear suppression factor of $S_{Pb}(x)$ in a wide range of the momentum fraction $x$, $10^{-5} leq x leq 0.04$. In the small-$x$ region $x < 10^{-3}$, our $chi^2$ fit favors a flat form of $S_{Pb}(x) approx 0.6$ with approximately a 5% accuracy for $x=6 times 10^{-4} - 10^{-3} $ and a 25% error at $x=10^{-4}$. At the same time, uncertainties of the fit do not exclude a slow decrease of $S_{Pb}(x)$ in the small-$x$ limit. At large $x$, $S_{Pb}(x)$ is constrained to better than 10% precision up to $x=0.04$ and is also consistent with the value of $S_{Pb}(x)$ at $langle x rangle =0.042$, which we extract from the Fermilab data on the $A$ dependence of the cross section of coherent $J/psi$ photoproduction on fixed nuclear targets. The resulting uncertainties on $S_{Pb}(x)$ are small, which indicates the potential of the LHC data on coherent charmonium photoproduction in Pb-Pb UPCs to provide additional constraints on small-$x$ nPDFs. We explicitly demonstrate this using as an example the EPPS16 and nCTEQ16 nuclear parton distribution functions, whose uncertainties decrease severalfold after the Bayesian reweighting of the discussed UPC data.
In this paper we analyse the double vector meson production in photon -- hadron ($gamma h$) interactions at $pp/pA/AA$ collisions and present predictions for the $rhorho$, $J/Psi J/Psi$ and $rho J/Psi$ production considering the double scattering mechanism. We estimate the total cross sections and rapidity distributions at LHC energies and compare our results with the predictions for the double vector meson production in $gamma gamma$ interactions at hadronic colliders. We present predictions for the different rapidity ranges probed by the ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb Collaborations. Our results demonstrate that the $rhorho$ and $J/Psi J/Psi$ production in $PbPb$ collisions is dominated by the double scattering mechanism, while the two - photon mechanism dominates in $pp$ collisions. Moreover, our results indicate that the analysis of the $rho J/Psi$ production at LHC can be useful to constrain the double scattering mechanism.