Modelling Coincident Particle Production in Ultraperipheral Heavy Ion Collisions

TL;DR

This paper provides detailed theoretical predictions for coincident $ ho^0$ meson and muon pair production in ultraperipheral heavy ion collisions, aligning well with recent experimental data and offering publicly available simulation tools.

Contribution

It introduces the first detailed differential predictions for coincident meson and muon pair production, validated against ATLAS data, and makes these calculations publicly accessible.

Findings

Predictions match ATLAS measurements well.

Differential kinematic predictions provided.

Muon pair production is suppressed at high energies.

Abstract

In this paper, we present an analysis of coincident particle production in ultraperipheral heavy ion collisions. In particular, we present the first detailed and differential predictions for coincident $\rho^0$ meson production in association with muon pair production, motivated by the recent ATLAS measurement of this process. These are found to describe the data very well, including the dependence of the coincidence fraction on the ZDC selection and/or other kinematic constraints on the muons. Differential predictions at the level of various kinematic variables are presented, and the calculation is made publicly available in the SuperChic MC generator. We also present general results for coincident two-photon initiated production focussing on muon and electron pair production; while the former is rather suppressed, the latter will be ubiquitous at threshold. The impact of coincident production on exclusivity vetos in ultraperipheral measurements is in addition discussed.