Coherent photon-photon interactions in very peripheral relativistic heavy ion collisions

TL;DR

This paper reviews ultraperipheral relativistic heavy ion collisions, highlighting their unique electromagnetic interactions at high energies, which differ from laser-induced strong fields and offer insights into photon-photon interactions.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of the characteristics and parameters of ultraperipheral heavy ion collisions and discusses their significance for photon-photon and photon-hadron interactions at colliders.

Findings

Identification of key parameters for ultraperipheral collisions

Distinct physics of high-energy photon interactions

Complementary insights compared to laser-induced fields

Abstract

Heavy ions at high velocities provide very strong electromagnetic fields for a very short time. The main characteristics of ultraperipheral relativistic heavy ion collisions are reviewed, characteristic parameters are identified. The main interest in ultraperipheral heavy ion collisions at relativistic ion colliders like the LHC is the interactions of very high energy (equivalent) photons with the countermoving (equivalent) photons and hadrons (protons/ions). The physics of these interactions is quite different from and complementary to the physics of the strong fields achieved with current and future lasers.