Inclusive quarkonium photoproduction selection and the effect of pileup at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper presents a selection strategy for measuring inclusive quarkonium photoproduction at the LHC, analyzing how pileup impacts the effectiveness of different detection methods across collision systems.

Contribution

The paper develops and discusses a selection method for isolating inclusive quarkonium photoproduction in pPb collisions and evaluates its applicability and limitations in various collision environments.

Findings

Pileup significantly affects forward-detector-based selections.

Rapidity-gap requirements are less effective under high pileup.

Method can be extended to PbPb collisions with considerations.

Abstract

Measurements of inclusive quarkonium photoproduction provide strong constraints on the quarkonium production mechanism; however, this process has not yet been measured at the LHC. We summarise our previously developed selection strategy for isolating inclusive quarkonium photoproduction in pPb collisions at the LHC, which offer an optimal balance of photon flux, luminosity, and low pileup. We further examine the applicability of our selection criteria in different collision systems. While our method can be readily extended to PbPb collisions, pp collisions require additional care due to the significantly higher pileup. We discuss how pileup affects the selection criteria, highlighting that it substantially degrades forward-detector-based selections and reduces the efficiency of rapidity-gap requirements.