Effects of the magnetic field on $\pi^0$ production in ultraperipheral Pb-Pb collisions

TL;DR

This paper investigates how strong magnetic fields in ultraperipheral Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC significantly reduce neutral pion production via photon-photon interactions, by affecting the pion's decay width.

Contribution

It introduces a magnetic-field-dependent decay width for $C0^0$ and quantifies its impact on production cross sections in heavy-ion collisions.

Findings

Magnetic fields cause a 2-3 fold reduction in $C0^0$ production cross section.

The decay width $C0^0 D7 o C3D7D7$ decreases with magnetic field strength.

The study uses the equivalent photon approximation to model the process.

Abstract

In this work, we study the effect of the magnetic field on the production of neutral pions in photon-photon interactions in ultraperipheral Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC. The calculation is performed within the equivalent photon approximation, including a magnetic-field dependence in the decay width $\Gamma(\pi^0\to\gamma\gamma)$, from which the corresponding production cross section is computed. We find that the reduction of the two-photon decay width in the presence of a strong magnetic field leads to a substantial reduction (by a factor of about 2-3) of the $\pi^0$ production cross section at LHC energies.