Speaker
E. Kryshen
(CERN)
Description
Pb nuclei, accelerated at 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
nuclear radii and hadronic interactions are strongly suppressed. Heavy quarkonium photoproduction
is of particular interest since it is sensitive to gluon distributions in target hadrons. 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
will be discussed. Recent ALICE results on rho0 photoproduction will be also presented.
Primary author
E. Kryshen
(CERN)