Central Exclusive Production at LHCb

TL;DR

This paper reports LHCb measurements of Central Exclusive Production cross-sections for various vector mesons and charmonia pairs, providing new insights into colourless propagator processes at hadron colliders.

Contribution

It presents the first measurements and observations of CEP for multiple mesons and charmonia pairs at LHCb, expanding understanding of these rare processes.

Findings

Measured CEP cross-sections for vector mesons like J/ψ and Υ states.

First observations of CEP of charmonia pairs such as J/ψ J/ψ.

Limits set on pair production of other charmonia states.

Abstract

Central Exclusive Production (CEP) is a unique process at hadron machines in which particles are produced via colourless propagators. LHCb have measured the cross-sections for the CEP of vector mesons, $J/\psi,\psi(2S),\Upsilon(1S),\Upsilon(2S)$ and $\Upsilon(3S)$, which are photo-produced. In the double pomeron exchange process, preliminary measurements have been made of $\chi_{c0},\chi_{c1}, \chi_{c2}$ meson production while the first observations of the CEP of pairs of charmonia, $J/\psi J/\psi$ and $J/\psi \psi(2S)$, have been made and limits obtained on the pair production of other charmonia.