Rapidity and momentum transfer distributions of coherent $J/psi$ photoproduction in ultraperipheral pPb collisions at the LHC

Based on accurate calculations of the flux of equivalent photons of the proton and heavy nuclei and the pQCD framework for the gluon distribution in the proton and nuclei, we analyze the rapidity and momentum transfer distributions of coherent $J/psi$ photoproduction in ultraperipheral proton-Pb collisions at the LHC. We demonstrate that unlike the case of proton-proton UPCs marred by certain theoretical uncertainties and experimental limitations, after a cut excluding the region of small momentum transfers, ultraperipheral proton-Pb collisions offer a clean way to study the gluon distribution in the proton down to $x approx 10^{-5}$. Our analysis of the momentum transfer distributions shows that an interplay of $J/psi$ production by low-energy photons on the nucleus and by high-energy photons on the proton in proton-Pb UPCs can result in some excess of events at small $p_t$ in a definite region of the rapidity y.

Exclusive J/{psi} production in ultraperipheral collisions at the LHC: constrains on the gluon distributions in the proton and nuclei

Using the framework of collinear factorization in perturbative QCD (pQCD), we analyze the recent data of the LHCb and ALICE collaborations on exclusive photoproduction of J/{psi} in ultraperipheral pp and AA collisions, respectively. We demonstrate that the simultaneous analysis of the proton and Pb data allows us to reduce the ambiguity of the pQCD description of the $gamma p to J/psi p$ and $gamma A to J/psi p$ cross sections and, hence, to place additional constraints on the gluon distributions in the nucleon and nuclei at small x. We also make predictions for the cross section of coherent exclusive photoproduction of J/{psi} in nucleus-nucleus ultraperipheral collisions accompanied by the electromagnetic excitation of nuclei and the subsequent neutron emission.