J/Ψ photoproduction in peripheral AA collisions

Abstract

The exclusive photoproduction of the heavy vector mesons J=Ψ is investigated in the context of peripheral lead-lead collisions for the energies available at the LHC, ps ¼ 2.76 TeV and sp ¼ 5.02 TeV. Using the light-cone color dipole formalism, the rapidity distribution was calculated in two centrality bins at 50%–70% and 70%–90% in order to evaluate its robustness in extrapolating down to a smaller impact parameter. A modified photon flux is introduced, without change in the photonuclear cross section in relation to the ultraperipheral (UPC) case. Results were obtained for the two regions analyzed, which presented a maximum difference of 27% in frontal rapidity for the two regions. Comparing the results for ps ¼ 2.76 TeV and ps ¼ 5.02 TeV, an increase was verified of approximately half the one obtained in the ultraperipheral regime in the central rapidity region.