Investigating the exclusive protoproduction of dileptons at high energies

Using the high energy color dipole approach, we study the exclusive photoproduction of lepton pairs. We use simple models for the elementary dipole-hadron scattering amplitude that captures main features of the dependence on atomic number A, on energy and on momentum transfer t. This investigation is complementary to conventional partonic description of timelike Compton scattering, which considers quark handbag diagrams at leading order in $\alpha_s$ and simple models of the relevant generalized parton distributions (GPDs). These calculations are input in electromagnetic interactions in pp and AA collisions to measured at the LHC.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Exclusive photoproduction of J/psi and psi(2S) states in pp and AA collisions at the LHC

In this contribution we report on the investigations of the exclusive production of J/psi and psi(2S) states in proton-proton and nucleus-nucleus reactions at the LHC using the theoretical framework of light-cone dipole formalism.Comment: Presented at EDS Blois 2013 (arXiv:1309.5705

Exclusive photoproduction of dileptons at high energies

The exclusive photoproduction of lepton pairs on nucleon and nucleus target is investigated within the high energy color dipole approach, where the main physical quantity is the dipole-target elastic scattering amplitude that captures the main features of the dependence on atomic number A, on energy and on momentum transfer t. These calculations are input in predictions for electromagnetic interactions in pp and AA collisions to be measured at the LHC.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure and 1 table. Contribution to the proceedings of XXXVIII International Symposium on Multiparticle Dynamics (ISMD2008). Hamburg, Germany, 15-20 September 200

Coherent photon-hadron interactions in pA collisions: Small-x physics after HERA

In this letter we study the photoproduction of heavy quarks and vector mesons in the coherent proton-nucleus (pA) interactions for RHIC and LHC energies and analyze if these processes can be used to determine the QCD dynamics at high energies. The integrated cross section and rapidity distribution are estimated using the Color Glass Condensate (CGC) formalism. A comparison with the linear dynamics predictions is also presented. Our results indicate that the nonlinear dynamics can be proven in those reactions, which are well suited for studing saturation effects.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. Version to be published in Physical Review

Diffractive photoproduction of Z^0 bosons in coherent interactions at CERN-LHC

The exclusive $Z^0$ photoproduction at high energies in $\gamma p (A)$, $p p$ and $AA$ collisions is investigate within the color dipole formalism. We generalize the description of the deeply virtual compton scattering (DVCS) process, which describe quite well the HERA data, for the production of $Z^0$ bosons and estimate the total cross section for the exclusive process $\gamma^* h\to Z^0 h$ ($h=p,A$) for different energies, photon virtualities and atomic numbers. As hadrons at collider energies are a source of Weizs\"{a}cker - Williams photons, we consider electromagnetic interactions in hadron-hadron collisions at Tevatron and LHC energies and estimate the rapidity distribution and total cross section for $Z^0$ production in the $h h\to h Z^0 h$ process. This is the first estimation for such a process in literature. It can allow us to study, for instance, the physics of hadronic $Z^0$ decays in a clean environment characterized by two rapidity gaps. Our results indicate that the experimental analyzes of this process could be feasible in $pp$ but the physics scenario for $AA$ collisions is not promising.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, 1 table; The erroneus additional factor of $2\pi$ in the normalization of the cross sections is removed. Figures and table are update