Speaker
Dr
Daniel Tapia Takaki
(University of Kansas)
Description
Protons and ions accelerated by the LHC carry an electromagnetic field, which acts as a source of photons. The beam energy at the LHC makes it the most energetic photon source ever built. The interaction of such high-energy photons with nuclei (or protons) can be studied in ultra-peripheral heavy-ion collisions, where the impact parameter is larger than the sum of the nuclear radii and hadronic interactions are therefore strongly suppressed.
Both the ALICE and CMS collaborations have studied photonuclear production of vector mesons in ultra-peripheral Pb-Pb and p-Pb collisions. The process effectively corresponds to an interaction between a photon, generated from the electromagnetic field of one of the nuclei with the other (target) nucleus. The study of these photon-nucleus interactions is interesting as a way to probe the nature of the initial state created in high energy nucleus-nucleus collisions.In this talk, the latest results from ALICE and CMS on exclusive production of light and heavy vector mesons in ultra-peripheral Pb-Pb and p-Pb collisions will be reviewed. These studies have demonstrated sensitivities to very low Bjorken-x values in both the proton and the Pb nucleus. The prospects for future analyses on ultra-peripheral collisions at the highest LHC energy will also be discussed.
Primary author
Dr
Daniel Tapia Takaki
(University of Kansas)
