Exclusive $J/\psi$ and $\Upsilon$ production in high energy $pp$ and $p$Pb collisions

TL;DR

This paper develops a next-to-leading order QCD formalism to calculate exclusive $J/\psi$ and $\Upsilon$ production cross sections in high-energy $pp$ and $p$Pb collisions, aiding the understanding of gluon distributions at low $x$.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive NLO QCD approach for exclusive heavy vector meson production in $pp$ and $p$Pb collisions, linking experimental data to gluon distributions.

Findings

Provides a formalism for rapidity-dependent cross sections.

Shows how data constrains low $x$ gluon distributions.

Highlights differences between $pp$ and $p$Pb production.

Abstract

We present a formalism for determining the cross section for exclusive heavy vector meson production ($J/\psi, \Upsilon$) as a function of rapidity, in both high energy proton-proton and proton-heavy ion collisions, at next-to-leading order in QCD. We compare and contrast the production in $pp$ and $p$Pb collisions and show how data for these processes can give information on the low $x$ gluon distribution of the proton and heavy ions at a range of different scales.