A study on the isolated photon production in nuclear collisions at the CERN-LHC energies

An analysis of prompt photon production in high energy nuclear collisions at the LHC is performed within the parton saturation picture taking into account the updated phenomenological color dipole models. Comparison between $\langle N_{coll}\rangle$ scaling for hard scattering in heavy-ion collisions and the $N_{part}$-scaling based on geometric scaling arguments has been done. The predictions are parameter free in the first case whereas a dependence on the constant of proportionality $\kappa$ between the number of participants and the nuclear saturation scale appears in the second case. This parameter has been analyzed in the prompt photon spectrum at small transverse momentum even though no fitting procedure was performed. Results are confronted with the measurements made by the ALICE, ATLAS, and CMS experiments in terms of photon transverse momentum at different rapidity bins. We show that the prompt photon production exhibits distinct scalings in $AA$ events associated to geometrical properties of the collision and can be properly addressed in the color dipole formalism. Based on the $N_{part}$-scaling, an analytical parametrization for the invariant cross section is provided and employed to predict the $x_T$-scaling in measurements. For $\kappa$ of order of unit the theoretical scaling curve correctly describes data in the range $x_T\leq 5\times 10^{-2}$.

Nonlinear corrections on the parametrization methods

We present nonlinear corrections (NLCs) to the distribution functions at low values of x and $$Q^{2}$$ Q 2 using the parametrization $$F_{2}(x,Q^{2})$$ F 2 ( x , Q 2 ) and $$F_{L}(x,Q^{2})$$ F L ( x , Q 2 ) . We use a direct method to extract nonlinear corrections to the ratio of structure functions and the reduced cross section in the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) approximation with respect to the parametrization method (PM). Comparisons between the nonlinear results with the bounds in the color dipole model (CDM) and HERA data indicate the consistency of the nonlinear behavior of the gluon distribution function at low x and low $$Q^{2}$$ Q 2 . The nonlinear longitudinal structure functions are comparable with the H1 Collaboration data in a wide range of $$Q^{2}$$ Q 2 values. Consequently, the nonlinear corrections at NNLO approximation to the reduced cross sections at low and moderate $$Q^{2}$$ Q 2 values show good agreement with the HERA combined data. These results at low x and low $$Q^{2}$$ Q 2 can be applied to the LHeC region for analyses of ultra-high-energy processes.

The color dipole picture for prompt photon production in pp and pPb collisions at the CERN-LHC

A study on the prompt photon production within the QCD color dipole picture with emphasis in pp and pA collisions at the LHC energy regimes is performed. We present predictions for the differential cross section as a function of photon transverse momentum at different rapidity bins considering updated phenomenological color dipole models, which take into account the QCD gluon saturation physics. The results are directly compared to the recent experimental measurements provided by CMS and ATLAS Collaborations, showing a reasonable agreement in all rapidity bins with no free parameters. Special attention is given to the IPSAT model given its good description of the data in all rapidity bins from low- to high-$$p_{T}$$ p T ranges. As a result, a free-parameter approach has succeeded in describing the LHC data for prompt photon production, while new predictions for the 13-TeV data is presented in view of new data to confirm such prospect.

Photon induced processes: from ultraperipheral to semicentral heavy ion collisions

We present an overview of processes induced by the coherent Weizsäcker-Williams (WW) photon cloud in heavy ion collisions. Due to the rather broad energy spectrum of photons a large variety of physics topics can be addressed. At the low-energy side, there are the electromagnetic dissociation processes. We discuss the few-neutron production via giant dipole resonance excitation. A typical high energy photonuclear process that has attracted much attention is the diffractive photoproduction of vector mesons. We review the color dipole approach to coherent and incoherent diffractive photoproduction of $$J/\psi $$ J / ψ mesons. Finally we turn to peripheral and semicentral collisions and discuss the role of WW photons in the production of very low-$$P_T$$ P T dileptons.