Photoproduction of relativistic QED bound states in hadronic collisions

TL;DR

This paper studies the production of relativistic QED bound states in various hadronic collisions at high energies, providing detailed cross section estimates and analyzing detector coverage effects.

Contribution

It offers the first comprehensive calculation of photoproduction cross sections for QED bound states in hadronic collisions, including absorptive corrections and nuclear form factors.

Findings

Large predicted event rates for $e^+ e^-$ and $^+ ^-$ states.

Significant impact of Coulomb corrections on parapositronium production.

Detailed analysis of rapidity coverage effects on detection.

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the photoproduction of QED bound states in proton -- proton, proton -- nucleus and nucleus -- nucleus collisions at RHIC, LHC and FCC energies considering an accurate treatment of the absorptive corrections and for the nuclear form factor. The total cross sections for the production of singlet and triplet $(l^+ l^-)$ states, with $l = e,\, \mu, \, \tau$, are estimated and a detailed analysis of the photoproduction of singlet QED bound states is performed considering the rapidity ranges covered by central and forward detectors. The impact of the Coulomb corrections on the parapositronium production in heavy ion collisions is estimated. We predict a large number of events associated to the production of ($e^+ e^-$) and ($\mu^+ \mu^-$) states in hadronic collisions.