Work

Probing gluon saturation and nuclear structure in photon-nucleus collisions

Year: 2024

Type: conference-paper

Abstract: We calculate exclusive vector meson photoproduction within the Color Glass Condensate framework in high-energy photon-nucleus scattering probed experimentally in ultra peripheral heavy ion collisions at RHIC and at the LHC. When the free parameters are constrained by the $\gamma+p$ data from HERA, we predict significant nuclear suppression for both the coherent and incoherent photoproduction cross section in the TeV range. Our results indicate that the LHC data prefers even stronger saturation effects at the highest collision energies. Furthermore, we demonstrate how the linear polarization of photons in ulra peripheral collisions generates azimuthal modulations in the decay products of the exclusively produced vector meson. We show how these measurements can probe details of the nuclear geometry, specifically the deformed structure of the uranium nuclei.

DOI: 10.22323/1.469.0110

Authors: Heikki Mäntysaari, Farid Salazar, Björn Schenke, Chun Shen, Wenbin Zhao

Institutions: University of Helsinki, Wayne State University, Brookhaven National Laboratory, University of Washington, Helsinki Institute of Physics, University of Jyväskylä, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, RIKEN BNL Research Center, University of California, Berkeley

Language: English

Topic: High-Energy Particle Collisions Research

Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics

Field: Physics and Astronomy

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Funders: U.S. Department of Energy, Strong, European Commission, Office of Science, Nuclear Physics, HORIZON EUROPE European Research Council

Awards: G111697547, G1132151304, INSTITUTE FOR NUCLEAR THEORY, Shining Light on Saturated Gluons, G14744916, G1607047924, G222768804, G241279073, INSTITUTE FOR NUCLEAR THEORY, G3111662533, The strong interaction at the frontier of knowledge: fundamental research and applications, G357145406, G434337789, G5765906131, QUANTITATIVE CHARACTERIZATION OF EMERGING QUARK-GLUON PLASMA PROPERTIES WITH DYNAMICAL FLUCTUATIONS AND SMALL SYSTEMS (EARLY CAREER RESEARCH PROGRAM), INSTITUTE FOR NUCLEAR THEORY, G7463374569, G7567520714

OpenAlex ID: W4405848595

FWCI: 1.86

Cites: 10

Cited by: 1

Related to: 10