https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-018-6530-5
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
Exclusive LHC physics with heavy ions: SuperChic 3
1
Clarendon Laboratory, Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PU, UK
2
Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology, University of Durham, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK
3
Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, NRC Kurchatov Institute, Gatchina, St. Petersburg, 188300, Russia
* e-mail: lucian.harland-lang@physics.ox.ac.uk
Received:
8
November
2018
Accepted:
20
December
2018
Published online:
18
January
2019
We present results of the updated SuperChic 3 Monte Carlo event generator for central exclusive production. This extends the previous treatment of proton–proton collisions to include heavy ion (pA and AA) beams, for both photon and QCD-initiated production, the first time such a unified treatment of exclusive processes has been presented in a single generator. To achieve this we have developed a theory of the gap survival factor in heavy ion collisions, which allows us to derive some straightforward results about the A scaling of the corresponding cross sections. We compare against the recent ATLAS and CMS measurements of light-by-light scattering at the LHC, in lead-lead collisions. We find that the background from QCD-initiated production is expected to be very small, in contrast to some earlier estimates. We also present results from new photon-initiated processes that can now be generated, namely the production of axion-like particles, monopole pairs and monopolium, top quark pair production, and the inclusion of W loops in light-by-light scattering.
© The Author(s), 2019
