Coherent $\rm{J/\psi}$ and $\rm{\psi'}$ photoproduction at midrapidity in ultra-peripheral Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}~=~5.02$ TeV

TL;DR

This paper reports measurements of coherent J/psi and psi' photoproduction in ultra-peripheral Pb-Pb collisions at 5.02 TeV, comparing results with theoretical models and exploring nuclear gluon shadowing effects.

Contribution

First measurement of coherent J/psi and psi' photoproduction in ultra-peripheral Pb-Pb collisions at this energy, with detailed comparison to shadowing models.

Findings

Good agreement with models including moderate nuclear gluon shadowing

Models struggle to fully describe the rapidity dependence of J/psi cross section

Psi' to J/psi cross section ratio matches proton photoproduction results

Abstract

The coherent photoproduction of $\rm{J/\psi}$ and $\rm{\psi'}$ mesons was measured in ultra-peripheral Pb-Pb collisions at a center-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}~=~5.02$ TeV with the ALICE detector. Charmonia are detected in the central rapidity region for events where the hadronic interactions are strongly suppressed. The $\rm{J/\psi}$ is reconstructed using the dilepton ($l^{+} l^{-}$) and proton-antiproton decay channels, while for the $\rm{\psi'}$, the dilepton and the $l^{+} l^{-} \pi^{+} \pi^{-}$ decay channels are studied. The analysis is based on an event sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 233 ${\mu b}^{-1}$. The results are compared with theoretical models for coherent $\rm{J/\psi}$ and $\rm{\psi'}$ photoproduction. The coherent cross section is found to be in a good agreement with models incorporating moderate nuclear gluon shadowing of about 0.65 at a Bjorken-$x$ of around $6\times 10^{-4}$, such as the EPS09 parametrization, however none of the models is able to fully describe the rapidity dependence of the coherent $\rm{J/\psi}$ cross section including ALICE measurements at forward rapidity. The ratio of $\rm{\psi'}$ to $\rm{J/\psi}$ coherent photoproduction cross sections was also measured and found to be consistent with the one for photoproduction off protons.