The phenomenology of central exclusive production at hadron colliders

TL;DR

This paper analyzes central exclusive production in high-energy hadron collisions, focusing on diphoton and meson pair final states, providing detailed predictions and uncertainty assessments for collider experiments.

Contribution

It offers a comprehensive phenomenological analysis of CEP processes, including uncertainty quantification, and presents cross-section predictions for RHIC, Tevatron, and LHC.

Findings

Broad agreement between experimental data and Durham model predictions.

Quantitative cross-section estimates for various colliders.

Assessment of theoretical uncertainties in CEP predictions.

Abstract

Central exclusive production (CEP) processes in high-energy hadron-hadron collisions provide an especially clean environment in which to measure the nature and quantum numbers (in particular, the spin and parity) of new resonance states. Encouraged by the broad agreement between experimental measurements and theoretical predictions based on the Durham approach, we perform a detailed phenomenological analysis of diphoton and meson pair CEP final states, paying particular attention to the theoretical uncertainties in the predictions, including those from parton distribution functions, higher-order perturbative corrections, and non-perturbative and proton dissociation contributions. We present quantitative cross-section predictions for these CEP final states at the RHIC, Tevatron and LHC colliders.