Photoproduction of light vector mesons in Xe-Xe ultraperipheral collisions at the LHC and the nuclear density of Xe-129

TL;DR

This paper predicts the cross sections for light vector meson photoproduction in Xe-Xe ultraperipheral collisions at the LHC and investigates how these measurements can inform the nuclear density of Xe-129, relevant for dark matter searches.

Contribution

It provides theoretical predictions for vector meson production in Xe-Xe collisions and proposes a method to extract nuclear density information from experimental data.

Findings

Predicted cross sections for $ ho$ and $phi$ mesons in Xe-Xe collisions.

Analysis of momentum transfer distributions for $ ho$ mesons.

Feasibility of determining Xe-129 nuclear density from ultraperipheral collision data.

Abstract

We make predictions for cross sections of $\rho$ and $\phi$ vector meson photoproduction in ultraperipheral Xe-Xe collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=5.44$ TeV. Analyzing the momentum transfer distribution of $\rho$ mesons in this process, we explore the feasibility of extracting the nuclear density of $^{129}$Xe, which is needed in searches for dark matter with Xenon-based detectors.