Speaker
Joakim Nystrand
(University of Bergen (NO))
Description
Particle production through photon-induced processes in
ultra-peripheral collisions has attracted an increasing interest
following the first heavy-ion runs at the CERN Large Haron Collider.
The increased collision energy compared with the Relativistic
Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) at BNL implies that also heavy final states
can be produced in abundance. The focus has so far been on exclusive
production of vector mesons, i.e. reactions of the type A+B --> A+B+V,
where the vector meson is produced in a photonuclear interaction. This
has been studied in Pb+Pb and p+Pb as well as p+p interactions.
This presentation will give a summary of the models available for
exclusive vector meson production in ultra-peripheral collisions. Most
calculations have concentrated on the production cross section as a
function of rapidity, dsig/dy, as this is believed to serve as a probe
of the nuclear/nucleon gluon distribution when a heavy vector is
produced. But a full description of the reaction dynamics requires
that also the transverse momentum and invariant mass distributions are
reproduced. How these latter quantities can be modelled will be
addressed in this presentation. Finally, models for more general
photonuclear/photon-nucleon interactions, such as photoproduction of
heavy quarks and jets, will be briefly discussed.
Author
Joakim Nystrand
(University of Bergen (NO))
