https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-019-7388-x
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
Probing double parton scattering via associated open charm and bottom production in ultraperipheral pA collisions
1
Departamento de Física, CFM, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, C.P. 476, Florianópolis, SC, CEP 88040-900, Brazil
2
Department of Astronomy and Theoretical Physics, Lund University, 223 62, Lund, Sweden
3
Nuclear Physics Institute ASCR, 25068, Řež, Czech Republic
* e-mail: emmanuel.de.oliveira@ufsc.br
Received:
10
May
2019
Accepted:
10
October
2019
Published online:
26
October
2019
In this article, we propose a novel channel for phenomenological studies of the double-parton scattering (DPS) based upon associated production of charm 
and bottom 
quark pairs in well-separated rapidity intervals in ultraperipheral high-energy proton–nucleus collisions. This process provides direct access to the double-gluon distribution in the proton at small-x and enables one to test the factorized DPS pocket formula. We have made the corresponding theoretical predictions for the DPS contribution to this process at typical LHC energies and beyond and we compute the energy-independent (but photon momentum fraction dependent) effective cross section.
© The Author(s), 2019
