Looking forward: Exclusive dilepton production with a leading proton

TL;DR

This paper discusses the use of the Precision Proton Spectrometer at the LHC to study exclusive dilepton production via gamma-mediated processes, enabling new insights into electroweak-scale particle production and rare processes.

Contribution

It presents the first results of exclusive dilepton production with proton tagging using the PPS detector at the LHC, highlighting its capabilities and ongoing research program.

Findings

First measurements of exclusive dilepton production with proton tagging at the LHC.

Demonstration of PPS's ability to operate at high luminosity and high pile-up conditions.

Potential to study quartic gauge couplings and rare exclusive processes.

Abstract

Exclusive dilepton production occurs with high cross section in gamma-mediated processes at the LHC. The pure QED process $\gamma\gamma\rightarrow\ell^+\ell^-$ provides the conditions to study particle production with masses at the electroweak scale. By tagging the leading proton from the hard interaction, the Precision Proton Spectrometer (PPS) provides an increased sensitivity to selecting exclusive processes. PPS is a detector system to add tracking and timing information at approximately 210~m from the interaction point around the CMS detector. It is designed to operate at high luminosity with up to 50 interactions per 25~ns bunch crossing to perform measurements of e.g. the quartic gauge couplings and search for rare exclusive processes. Since 2016, PPS has been taking data in normal high-luminosity proton-proton LHC collisions. Exclusive dilepton production with proton tagging, the first results obtained with PPS, and the status of the ongoing program are discussed.