Photoproduction of $\rho^0$ mesons in ultraperipheral heavy ion collisions at energies available at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC)

TL;DR

This paper studies the production of $ ho^0$ mesons in ultraperipheral heavy ion collisions at RHIC and LHC, comparing models and data to understand QCD dynamics and the dipole-target cross section.

Contribution

It applies the dipole approach and CGC models to predict meson production, highlighting the energy dependence of cross sections and their potential to test QCD at high energies.

Findings

Total cross section at RHIC depends on low-energy dipole cross section behavior.

Predictions at midrapidity at RHIC and full rapidity at LHC are theoretically reliable.

Model predictions are compared with STAR data to validate approaches.

Abstract

We investigate the photoproduction of $\rho$ mesons in ultraperipheral heavy ion collisions at RHIC and LHC energies in the dipole approach and within two phenomenological models based on the the Color Glass Condensate (CGC) formalism. We estimate the integrated cross section and rapidity distribution for meson production and compare our predictions with the data from the STAR collaboration. In particular, we demonstrate that the total cross section at RHIC is strongly dependent on the energy behavior of the dipole-target cross section at low energies, which is not well determined in the dipole approach. In contrast, the predictions at midrapidities at RHIC and in the full rapidity at LHC are under theoretical control and can be used to test the QCD dynamics at high energies.