Exclusive $\rho$ and $J/\Psi$ photoproduction in ultraperipheral $pO$ and $OO$ collisions at energies available at the CERN Large Hadron Collider

TL;DR

This paper predicts exclusive $ ho$ and $J/\Psi$ photoproduction in ultraperipheral $pO$ and $OO$ collisions at the LHC, aiming to explore QCD dynamics in a new regime using the color dipole formalism.

Contribution

It provides the first estimates of these processes in $pO$ and $OO$ collisions at the LHC, using various models for the dipole-target interaction and vector meson wave functions.

Findings

Predicted rapidity and transverse momentum distributions for the processes.

Estimated total cross sections within the rapidity ranges of ALICE and LHCb.

Results suggest experimental feasibility and potential to enhance understanding of high-energy QCD.

Abstract

Collisions with Oxygen ions at the LHC opens the possibility of investigating the description of the QCD dynamics in an unexplored regime, complementary to those performed in $pp$, $pPb$ and $PbPb$ collisions. In this paper we estimate the exclusive $\rho$ and $J/\Psi$ photoproduction in ultraperipheral $pO$ and $OO$ collisions at the Large Hadron Collider using the color dipole formalism and considering distinct models for the dipole - target scattering amplitude and different approaches for the modelling of the vector meson wave function. We present our predictions for the rapidity and transverse momentum distributions, as well as for the total cross sections considering the rapidity ranges covered by the ALICE and LHCb detectors. Such results indicate that a future experimental analysis of these final states is feasible and that its study can be useful to improve our understanding of the QCD dynamics at high energies.