The Physics of Ultraperipheral Collisions at the LHC

Abstract

We discuss the physics of large impact parameter interactions at the LHC: ultraperipheral collisions (UPCs). The dominant processes in UPCs are photon-nucleon (nucleus) interactions. The current LHC detector configurations can explore small $x$ hard phenomena with nuclei and nucleons at photon-nucleon center-of-mass energies above 1 TeV, extending the $x$ range of HERA by a factor of ten. In particular, it will be possible to probe diffractive and inclusive parton densities in nuclei using several processes. The interaction of small dipoles with protons and nuclei can be investigated in elastic and quasi-elastic $J/\psi$ and ${\rm Y}$ production as well as in high $t$ ${\rho }^0$ production accompanied by a rapidity gap. Several of these phenomena provide clean signatures of the onset of the new high gluon density QCD regime. The LHC is in the kinematic range where nonlinear effects are several times larger than at HERA. Two-photon processes in UPCs are also studied. In addition, while UPCs play a role in limiting the maximum beam luminosity, they can also be used a luminosity monitor by measuring mutual electromagnetic dissociation of the beam nuclei. We also review similar studies at HERA and RHIC as well as describe the potential use of the LHC detectors for UPC measurements.

229 Pages, 121 figures

References in corpus (7)

• First observations of beam losses due to bound-free pair production in a heavy-ion collider
• Exclusive and inclusive muon pair production in collisions of relativistic nuclei
• TeV gamma-rays from photo-disintegration/de-excitation of cosmic-ray nuclei
• Performance Studies of Prototype II for the CASTOR forward Calorimeter at the CMS Experiment
• Elastic and large t rapidity gap vector meson production in ultraperipheral proton-ion collisions
• Low-x QCD physics from RHIC and HERA to the LHC
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Cited by in corpus (31)

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• Can one measure timelike Compton scattering at LHC ?
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• Constraining the nuclear gluon distribution in $eA$ processes at RHIC
• Photoproduction of ${\rho }^0$ mesons in ultraperipheral heavy ion collisions at energies available at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
• Investigating the exclusive protoproduction of dileptons at high energies
• Hard Pomeron-Odderon interference effects in the production of pi^+pi^- pairs in high energy gamma-gamma collisions at the LHC
• Nuclear shadowing from exclusive quarkonium photoproduction at the BNL RHIC and CERN LHC
• Revisiting unitarity corrections for electromagnetic processes in collisions of relativistic nuclei
• Large t diffractive J/ψphotoproduction with proton dissociation in ultraperipheral pA collisions at LHC
• Nuclear DVCS at small-x using the color dipole phenomenology
• Higher Order QED Calculation of Ultrarelativistic Heavy Ion Production of mu+ mu- Pairs
• Coherent photon-photon interactions in very peripheral relativistic heavy ion collisions
• Exclusive photoproduction of lepton pairs at LHC
• Generalized parton distributions and Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering in Color Glass Condensate model
• Leading twist nuclear shadowing, nuclear generalized parton distributions and nuclear DVCS at small x
• Perspectives for inclusive quarkonium production in photon-photon collisions at the LHC
• Real Compton Scattering via Color Dipoles
• High-energy photon collisions at the LHC - dream or reality?
• Exchange of high and low energy photons in ultraperipheral relativistic heavy-ion collisions
• Electromagnetic and strong contributions to dAu soft coherent inelastic diffraction at RHIC
• Diffractive Higgs boson photoproduction in $\gamma p$ process
• As an Introduction: Quest for New Physics in Photon-Photon Interactions at the LHC
• Looking for the Odderon in photon collisions
• Ultraperipheral Collisions at RHIC and LHC
• Two-Photon Interactions with Nuclear Breakup in Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions
• Experimental tests of small-x QCD
• Theoretical Perspectives: XLIII Rencontres de Moriond - QCD
• ADS/CFT Applied To Vector Meson Emission From A Heavy Accelerated Nucleus