Non-exclusive particle production by $\gamma \gamma$ interactions in $pp$ collisions at the LHC

Abstract

Particle production in two-photon interactions at hadronic collisions is becoming increasingly relevant in the LHC physics programme as a way to improve our understanding of the Standard Model and search for signals of New Physics. A key ingredient for the study of these interactions in $pp$ collisions is the description of the photon content of the proton, which allow us to derive predictions for the cross sections associated to events where occur the proton dissociation (non - exclusive processes) and for those where both incident protons remain intact (exclusive processes). In this paper, a detailed comparison of the different models for the elastic and inelastic photon distributions found in the literature is presented and the current theoretical uncertainty is estimated. The impact on the invariant mass distribution for the dimuon production is analyzed. Moreover, the relative contribution of non - exclusive events is estimated and its dependence on the invariant mass of the pair is presented. We demonstrate that the predictions for production of pairs with large invariant mass is strongly dependent on the model assumed to describe the elastic and inelastic photon distributions and that the ratio between non - exclusive and exclusive cross sections present a mild energy dependence. Finally, our results indicate that a future experimental analysis of the non - exclusive events will be useful to constrain the photon content of proton.

arXiv comment14 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (40)

• Parton distributions with QED corrections
• Parton distributions incorporating QED contributions
• How bright is the proton? A precise determination of the photon parton distribution function
• The Photon Content of the Proton
• Illuminating the photon content of the proton within a global PDF analysis
• Photon-Photon Physics in Very Peripheral Collisions of Relativistic Heavy Ions
• LHC Forward Physics
• Study of exclusive two-photon production of W(+)W(-) in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV and constraints on anomalous quartic gauge couplings
• Luminosity monitors at the LHC
• Exclusive photon-photon production of muon pairs in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV
• Evidence for exclusive gamma gamma to W+W- production and constraints on anomalous quartic gauge couplings in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 and 8 TeV
• Search for exclusive or semi-exclusive photon pair production and observation of exclusive and semi-exclusive electron pair production in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV
• A Kinematically Complete Measurement of the Proton Structure Function F2 in the Resonance Region and Evaluation of Its Moments
• The photon PDF in events with rapidity gaps
• A new approach to modelling elastic and inelastic photon-initiated production at the LHC: SuperChic 4
• Observation of proton-tagged, central (semi)exclusive production of high-mass lepton pairs in pp collisions at 13 TeV with the CMS-TOTEM precision proton spectrometer
• $\gamma \gamma$ Processes at High Energy pp Colliders
• Measurement of the exclusive $\gamma \gamma \to {\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-}$ process in proton--proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV with the ATLAS detector
• The role of finite-size effects on the spectrum of equivalent photons in proton-proton collisions at the LHC
• Measurement of exclusive $\gamma \gamma \to {\ell }^{+}{\ell }^{-}$ production in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=7$ TeV with the ATLAS detector
• The photon PDF of the proton
• Observation and measurement of forward proton scattering in association with lepton pairs produced via the photon fusion mechanism at ATLAS
• The Polarized and Unpolarized Photon Content of the Nucleon
• Ad Lucem: QED Parton Distribution Functions in the MMHT Framework
• LHC Searches for Dark Matter in Compressed Mass Scenarios: Challenges in the Forward Proton Mode
• Two-photon dilepton production in proton-proton collisions: two alternative approaches
• Central ${\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-}$ production via photon-photon fusion in proton-proton collisions with proton dissociation
• Precision luminosity measurement at LHC using two-photon production of mu^+ mu^- pairs
• Top quark pair production in the exclusive processes at LHC
• Performance studies of Time-of-Flight detectors at LHC
• On the photon constituency of protons
• Rapidity gap survival factors caused by remnant fragmentation for $W^{+}{W}^{-}$ pair production via ${\gamma }^{\ast }{\gamma }^{\ast }\to W^{+}{W}^{-}$ subprocess with photon transverse momenta
• Constraining the photon flux in two-photon processes at the LHC
• The Proton in High Definition: Revisiting Photon-Initiated Production in High Energy Collisions
• Probing the photon flux in the diffractive quarkonium photoproduction at LHC
• Production of $t\bar{t}$ pairs via $\gamma \gamma$ fusion with photon transverse momenta and proton dissociation
• Exclusive and diffractive ${\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-}$ production in $pp$ collisions at the LHC
• Central exclusive production of $W$ boson pairs in $pp$ collisions at the LHC in hadronic and semi-leptonic final states
• Exclusive and semiexclusive production of ${\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-}$ pairs with $\Delta$ isobars and other resonances in the final state and the size of absorption effects
• Diffractive $\gamma \gamma$ production in $pp$ collisions at the LHC

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Exclusive doubly charged Higgs boson pair production in $pp$ collisions at the LHC
• DPS mechanism for associated $c\bar{c}{l}^{+}{l}^{-}$ production in $AA$ UPCs as a probe for photon density inside the nucleus
• Elastic and inelastic $J/\psi$ photoproduction in $p$-$p$ collisions at LHC energies: the feature of Weizsäcker-Williams approximation