Speaker
Description
Photon-photon fusion is a rare process at hadron and ion colliders. It is particularly interesting as a remarkably clean interaction with little (if any) remnant activity from the interacting particles. In this talk we present the status of photon-photon fusion measurements at the ATLAS detector, focussing on two types of analyses. In the first type of analysis, the ATLAS inner tracking detectors and calorimeters are used to define an interaction with little hadronic activity (so-called rapidity gaps). In the second, the ATLAS Forward Proton (AFP) detectors are used to tag intact protons from the photon-photon fusion process, that are scattered at small angles in diffractive and electromagnetic processes. These detectors can operate during standard high-luminosity LHC runs and collect large amounts of integrated luminosity. The AFP detectors and their performance during 2017 and 2018 operations will be presented.
