Nuclear Shadowing in inelastic photon-nucleus scattering in UPCs with forward neutrons

Authors

  • Mark Strikman Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA
  • Vadim Guzey University of Jyvaskyla, Department of Physics, P.O. Box 35, FI-40014 University of Jyvaskyla, Finland and Helsinki Institute of Physics, P.O. Box 64, FI-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2393-8507
  • Massimiliano Alvioli Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Ricerca per la Protezione Idrogeologica, via Madonna Alta 126, I-06128, Perugia, Italy. Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Perugia, via Pascoli 23c, I-06123, Perugia, Italy

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17161/fnzwt563

Keywords:

Heavy-ion scattering, ultraperipheral collisions, nuclear shadowing

Abstract

We argue that measurements of forward neutrons from nuclear breakup in inclusive high energy photon-nucleus (photon-A) scattering provide a novel complementary way to study small-x dynamics of QCD in heavy-ion ultraperipheral collisions (UPCs). Using the leading twist approach to nuclear shadowing, we calculate the distribution over the number of evaporation neutrons produced in photon-lead collisions at the LHC. We demonstrate that it allows one to determine the distribution over the number of wounded nucleons (inelastic collisions),  which constrains the mechanism of nuclear shadowing of nuclear parton distributions and gives an access to their impact parameter dependence.

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Published

2025-03-11

Issue

UPC 2023: Proceedings of the International workshop on the physics of Ultra Peripheral Collisions

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2024 Mark Strikman, Vadim Guzey, Massimiliano Alvioli

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.