Exclusive production of pion pairs with large invariant mass in nucleus-nucleus collisions

TL;DR

This paper calculates the cross section for exclusive pion pair production in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions at LHC energies, using a pQCD approach informed by recent experimental data.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed calculation of pion pair production cross sections in nucleus-nucleus collisions at LHC energies using the Brodsky-Lepage pQCD framework.

Findings

Cross sections are computed for $ ho^0 ho^0$ and $ ho^+ ho^-$ channels.

Results incorporate recent pion transition form factor data from BaBar.

Predictions can guide experimental searches at the LHC.

Abstract

The cross section for exclusive $\pi^+\pi^-$ and $\pi^0\pi^0$ meson pairs production in peripheral ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions is calculated at the energy available at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, i.e., $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=3.5$ TeV. The cross section for elementary $\gamma\gamma\to\pi\pi$ process is calculated with the help of the pQCD Brodsky-Lepage approach with the distribution amplitude used recently to describe the pion transition form factor measured by the BaBar Collaboration.