Two-Photon Interactions with Nuclear Breakup in Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions

TL;DR

This paper calculates cross sections and distributions for two-photon interactions with nuclear breakup in relativistic heavy ion collisions, highlighting how additional photonuclear interactions influence observable outcomes and can be distinguished by transverse momentum.

Contribution

It provides detailed calculations of cross sections and distributions for photon-induced reactions with nuclear breakup, including the effects of mutual Coulomb dissociation, in relativistic heavy ion collisions.

Findings

Cross sections for photonuclear interactions with neutron emission are significantly smaller than unaccompanied gamma-gamma interactions.

Transverse momentum distributions can help distinguish between different interaction types.

Calculated distributions can guide experimental detection and analysis of these processes.

Abstract

Highly charged relativistic heavy ions have high cross-sections for two-photon interactions. The photon flux is high enough that two-photon interactions may be accompanied by additional photonuclear interactions. Except for the shared impact parameter, these interactions are independent. Additional interactions like mutual Coulomb excitation are of experimental interest, since the neutrons from the nuclear dissociation provide a simple, relatively unbiased trigger. We calculate the cross sections, rapidity, mass and transverse momentum ($p_T)$ distributions for exclusive $\gamma\gamma$ production of mesons and lepton pairs, and for $\gamma\gamma$ reactions accompanied by mutual Coulomb dissociation. The cross-sections for $\gamma\gamma$ interactions accompanied by multiple neutron emission ($XnXn$) and single neutron emission ($1n1n$) are about 1/10 and 1/100 of that for the unaccompanied $\gamma\gamma$ interactions. We discuss the accuracy with which these cross-sections may be calculated. The typical $p_T$ of $\gamma\gamma$ final states is several times smaller than for comparable coherent photonuclear interactions, so $p_T$ may be an effective tool for separating the two classes of interactions.