Dipion and dikaon photoproduction in ultra-peripheral Pb-Pb collisions with ALICE

TL;DR

This paper reports on the measurement of dipion and dikaon photoproduction in ultra-peripheral Pb-Pb and Xe-Xe collisions at high energies, providing insights into strong interaction physics through electromagnetic processes.

Contribution

It presents new measurements of $ ho^0$ meson and direct $ ext{pi}^+ ext{pi}^-$ production, and explores the potential for studying exclusive $K^+K^-$ photoproduction at high invariant masses.

Findings

Measured $ ho^0$ meson production in ultra-peripheral collisions.

Analyzed direct $ ext{pi}^+ ext{pi}^-$ production.

Discussed prospects for $K^+K^-$ photoproduction above $ ext{phi}(1020)$ threshold.

Abstract

High energy photons originating from the electromagnetic field of ultrarelativistic lead nuclei can interact with the other lead ion. These reactions are studied in the ultra-peripheral heavy ion collisions to probe the physics of strong interactions. The analysis of dipion and dikaon photoproduction was carried out using the ALICE 2015 Pb-Pb data at center-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s}~=~5.02$ TeV, and 2017 Xe-Xe data at $\sqrt{s}~=~5.44$ TeV. We present the $\rho^0$ meson and direct $\pi^{+}\pi^{-}$ measurements, as well as the prospects of studying exclusive $K^{+}K^{-}$ photoproduction, with sensitivity towards higher dikaon invariant mass above the $\phi(1020)$ threshold.