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Diffractive vector meson photoproduction in oxygen-oxygen and neon-neon ultraperipheral collisions at energies available at the CERN Large Hadron Collider

J. Cepila, J. G. Contreras, M. Matas, and A. Ridzikova*

  • *Contact author: ridziale@cvut.cz
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Phys. Rev. C 113, 025202 – Published 10 February, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/yw1p-tsbj

Abstract

The energy-dependent hotspot model is used to predict cross sections for vector-meson diffractive photonuclear production off oxygen (γO) and neon (γNe) that can be extracted from ultraperipheral O-O and Ne-Ne collisions, recently recorded at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. In both cases, two models are used to describe the nuclear shapes. Woods-Saxon prescriptions for O and Ne as well as an alpha-cluster description of O and a bowling-pin-like shape for Ne, according to the projected generator coordinate method (PGCM) formalism. Predictions are presented for the dependence on the center-of-mass energy of the photon-nucleus system, as well as on Mandelstam t, of the cross sections for the coherent and the incoherent photonuclear production of ρ0 and J/ψ vector mesons. Furthermore, the rapidity dependence of the ultraperipheral cross section is reported for all cases. It is found that the incoherent process provides a measurable signature for the approach to the gluon-saturation regime, and that the simultaneous determination of ρ0 and J/ψ coherent and incoherent production provides a strong constraint on nuclear models for both O and Ne.

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Phys. Rev. C 113, 025202– Published 10 February, 2026
  • Received 16 September 2025
  • Accepted 10 December 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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