Dilepton production through timelike Compton scattering within the $k_T$-factorization approach

TL;DR

This paper investigates dilepton production via timelike Compton scattering in high-energy collisions using the $k_T$-factorization approach, comparing different gluon distributions across various collider energies.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed calculation of the TCS differential cross section within the $k_T$-factorization framework, analyzing the impact of various unintegrated gluon distributions at multiple collider energies.

Findings

Differential cross sections depend on the choice of UGD.

Significant variation observed across collider energies.

Provides predictions for future collider experiments.

Abstract

In this work we consider the dilepton production via timelike Compton scattering (TCS) in electron-proton and proton-proton collisions. In particular, the differential cross section in terms of the dilepton invariant mass and rapidity is computed within the $k_T$-factorization approach. Besides, we utilize distinct unintegrated gluon distributions (UGD) in order to compare their impact on the differential cross section of TCS in $pp$ ($ep$) collisions evaluated at the LHC (LHeC), HL-LHC (LHeC), HE-LHC (LHeC) and FCC-hh (eh) center-of-mass energies.