Probing the photon flux in the diffractive quarkonium photoproduction at the LHC

Abstract

In this paper we propose the study of the diffractive quarkonium photoproduction in $pp$ collisions at LHC energies to probe the photon flux associated with an ultrarelativistic proton. The total photon distribution is expected to be given in terms of the elastic and inelastic components. Distinctly from the elastic photon component that can be determined from the elastic form factors, the magnitude of the inelastic component still is an open question. We consider the current parametrizations for the photon distribution of a proton and estimate the rapidity distributions and total cross sections for the production of $J/\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Psi}}$, ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Psi}}}^{\ensuremath{'}}$, and $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Upsilon}}$ at LHC energies. We demonstrate that the predictions associated with the inelastic contribution are of the same order as those associated with the elastic one. Our results imply that a dedicated experimental analysis of diffractive quarkonium photoproduction with the tagging of the two protons in the final state can be useful to constrain the magnitude of the inelastic component of the photon distribution.