Central exclusive photoproduction at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper investigates the exclusive photoproduction of heavy vector mesons and Z^0 bosons at the LHC, using a k_perp-factorisation model validated against HERA data, providing predictions for future experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed modeling approach for exclusive photoproduction at the LHC, extending previous HERA-based studies to higher energies and including Z^0 boson production.

Findings

Predictions for heavy quarkonia production at LHC energies.

Validation of the model against HERA data.

Discussion of Z^0 boson photoproduction.

Abstract

Protons and antiprotons at collider energies are a source of high energy Weizsaecker--Williams photons. This opens up a possibility to study at the LHC exclusive photoproduction of heavy vector mesons at energies much larger than possible at the HERA accelerator. We present selected results of our detailed studies of various distributions for the production of heavy quarkonia (e.g. rapidity, transverse momenta, azimuthal angles). We give predictions for LHC energies. Our calculations are based on modelling the photoproduction amplitudes in a k_\perp-factorisation approach which is checked against HERA data. We also discuss the exclusive photoproduction of Z^0 bosons.