Timelike Compton scattering in ultraperipheral pPb collisions

Abstract

The study of exclusive processes in photon-induced interactions allows us to probe the generalized parton distributions (GPDs), which provide information about the 3-dimensional description of the quark and gluon content of hadrons. In this paper we investigate the timelike Compton scattering (TCS) in ultraperipheral pPb collisions at the LHC. Such process is characterized by the exclusive dilepton production through the subprocess γp→γ⁎p→l+l−p, with the real photon in the initial state being emitted by the nucleus. Assuming a given model for the GPDs, the TCS differential cross section is estimated as well the contribution associated to the interference between the TCS and Bethe–Heitler (BH) amplitudes. Predictions for the TCS, BH and interference contributions are presented considering the kinematical range covered by the LHC detectors.