Next-to-Leading-Order study on the associate production of $J/\psi+\gamma$ at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper performs a detailed NLO QCD analysis of $J/eta$ + gamma production at the LHC, showing how different LDME sets affect predictions and proposing measurements to resolve the $J/eta$ polarization puzzle.

Contribution

It provides the first complete NLO study of $J/eta$ + gamma production within NRQCD and suggests how to determine LDMEs to address polarization issues.

Findings

Only one LDME set yields positive $p_t$ distribution at high $p_t$.

Estimated measurable up to $p_t=50$ GeV with current LHC data.

Measurement can fix LDMEs and clarify the $J/eta$ polarization puzzle.

Abstract

The associate $J/\psi+\gamma$ production at the LHC is studied completely at next-to-leading-order (NLO) within the framework of nonrelativistic QCD. By using three sets of color-octet long-distance matrix elements (LDMEs) obtained in previous prompt $J/\psi$ studies, we find that only one of them can result in a positive transverse momentum ($p_t$) distribution of $J/\psi$ production rate at large $p_t$ region. Based on reasonable consideration to cut down background, our estimation is measurable upto $p_t=50$GeV with present data sample collected at $8$TeV LHC. All the color-octet LDMEs in $J/\psi$ production could be fixed sensitively by including this proposed measurement and our calculation, and then confident conclusion on $J/\psi$ polarization puzzle could be achieved.