Lead nuclei, accelerated at the LHC, are sources of strong electromagnetic
fields that can be used to measure photon-induced interactions in a new
kinematic regime. These interactions can be studied in ultra-peripheral p-Pb
and Pb-Pb collisions where impact parameters are larger than the sum of the
nuclear radii and hadronic interactions are strongly suppressed. Heavy
quarkonium photoproduction is of particular interest since it is sensitive to
the gluon distribution in the target. The ALICE Collaboration has studied J/psi
and psi(2S) photoproduction in ultra-peripheral Pb-Pb collisions and exclusive
J/psi photoproduction off protons in ultra-peripheral p-Pb collisions at the
LHC. Implications for the study of gluon density distributions and nuclear
gluon shadowing are discussed. Recent ALICE results on rho photoproduction are
also presented.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, proceedings of the International Conference on
Particles and Nuclei (PANIC 2014), Hamburg, Germany, August 25-29, 201