Photonuclear production of vector mesons in ultra-peripheral Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper reports on the ALICE Collaboration's latest measurements of exclusive vector meson production in ultra-peripheral Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC, providing insights into nuclear gluon distributions through photonuclear interactions.

Contribution

It presents new experimental results on light and heavy vector meson production in ultra-peripheral heavy-ion collisions, expanding understanding of photonuclear processes at high energies.

Findings

Measured cross sections for vector meson production at various rapidities.

Provided data on nuclear gluon distribution through photoproduction results.

Enhanced understanding of electromagnetic interactions in heavy-ion collisions.

Abstract

Vector mesons are copiously produced in ultra-peripheral nucleus-nucleus collisions. In these collisions, the nuclei are separated by impact parameters larger than the sum of the nuclear radii, and the interaction is mediated by the electromagnetic field. The interaction effectively corresponds to a photonuclear interaction between a photon, generated from the electromagnetic field of one of the nuclei, and the target nucleus. The ALICE Collaboration has previously published results on exclusive J/psi photoproduction at mid and forward rapidities in Pb-Pb collisions. The cross section for this process is a particularly good measure of the nuclear gluon distribution. In this talk, the latest results on exclusive production of light and heavy vector mesons from ALICE in Pb-Pb collisions will be presented.