Exclusive electromagnetic production of pion pairs in lead-lead collisions at LHC *

Abstract

The cross section for π+π− and π0π0 meson pairs production in peripheral ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions is calculated in the impact parameter space equivalent photon approximation. The cross section is calculated at the energy available at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, √sNN = 3.5 TeV. For the first time the world data for γγ → ππ are described, both for the total cross section and for the angular distribution. This is obtained simultaneously for γγ → π+π− and γγ → π0π0 at all experimentally available energies.