https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s2004-01857-6
theoretical physics
Double-diffractive 
meson production at the hadron colliders
1
Department of Physics and Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology, University of Durham, DH1 3LE, UK
2
Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, 188300, Gatchina, St. Petersburg, Russia
3
Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Durham, DH1 3LE, UK
The double-diffractive production of 
and 
mesons, with a rapidity gap on either side, is studied, using both the Regge formalism and the perturbative QCD approach. Due to the rather low scale, the exclusive double-diffractive process 
is predicted to dominate, whereas the probability that the incoming protons dissociate is expected to be relatively small. We evaluate the corresponding production cross sections at the Tevatron and LHC energies. For the double-diffractive process with proton dissociation, it is possible to select events with large transverse momenta transferred through the rapidity gaps, by measuring the transverse energy, 
, flows in the proton fragmentation regions. Then the large provides a scale to justify the use of perturbative QCD, and to allow a spin-parity analysis of the centrally produced system to be performed, by studying the azimuthal angular correlations between the directions of the forward and backward flows. The central production of the new X(3872) charmonium state is considered.
© Springer-Verlag, 2004
