Inclusive photoproduction of vector quarkonium in ultra-peripheral collisions at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper investigates the potential for studying inclusive vector quarkonium photoproduction at the LHC, proposing methods to isolate signals from background in various detectors, especially CMS.

Contribution

It extends existing data to predict quarkonium yields in proton-lead collisions and outlines strategies for background suppression at the LHC.

Findings

Predicted $J/\psi$ yields in proton-lead collisions.

Proposed background suppression techniques for LHC detectors.

Feasibility of inclusive photoproduction studies at the LHC.

Abstract

We explore the prospects of extending the LHC from a hadron-hadron to a photon-hadron collider and performing studies of inclusive quarkonium photoproduction. We perform an extrapolation from HERA data to predict the yields of photoproduced $J/\psi$ mesons in proton-lead collisions. Similarly, we perform an extrapolation from LHC data to model the large hadronic background. Inclusive photoproduction can be isolated from this background in the LHC detectors, namely, ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, and LHCb by imposing constraints on the hadronic activity in the main detector and in the far-forward region. This work focuses on the CMS detector.