Parton distribution functions probed in ultraperipheral collisions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider

ORAL

Abstract

Vector meson production in ultra-peripheral pA and AA collisions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are very sensitive to Parton Distribution Functions (PDF) as well as to their leading-order, next-to-leading-order, and medium corrections. This process is a complimentary tool to explore the effects of different PDFs in particle production in proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus central collisions. Existing and forthcoming data available, e.g., from ALICE and CMS, may be used in conjunction with our theoretical predictions to constrain the PDFs which best match their event rates. We make predictions for rapidity distributions and for cross sections of J/Psi, psi(2S), and Upsilon production at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=2.76$ TeV and $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=5.02$ TeV.

Authors

  • James Thomas

    Texas A\&M University - Commerce, Texas A\&M University-Commerce

  • C.A. Bertulani

    Texas A\&M University - Commerce, Texas A\&M University-Commerce

  • N. Brady

    Texas A\&M University - Commerce, Texas A\&M University-Commerce

  • D. B. Clark

    Southern Methodist University

  • E. Godat

    Southern Methodist University

  • A. Kusina

    Laboratoire de Physique Subatomique et de Cosmologie

  • F. Olness

    Southern Methodist University