Contributor info: Prof. Tuomas Lappi

Tuomas Lappi, Heikki Mäntysaari, Jani Penttala

SciPost Phys. Proc. 8, 133 (2022) · published 14 July 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We present results for higher-order corrections to exclusive $\mathrm{J}/\psi$ production. This includes the first relativistic correction of order $v^2$ in quark velocity, and next-to-leading order corrections in $\alpha_s$ for longitudinally polarized production. The relativistic corrections are found to be important for a good description of the HERA data, especially at small values of the photon virtuality. The next-to-leading order results for longitudinal production are evaluated numerically. We also demonstrate how the vector meson production provides complementary information to the structure functions for extracting the initial condition for the small-$x$ evolution of the dipole-proton scattering amplitude.

Miguel Ángel Escobedo Espinosa, Tuomas Lappi

SciPost Phys. Proc. 8, 023 (2022) · published 11 July 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We study exclusive quarkonium production in the dipole picture at next-to-leading order (NLO) accuracy, using the non-relativistic expansion for the quarkonium wavefunction. The quarkonium light cone wave functions needed in the dipole picture have typically been available only at tree level, either in phenomenological models or in the nonrelativistic limit. Here, we discuss the compatibility of the dipole approach and the non-relativistic expansion and compute NLO relativistic corrections to the quarkonium light-cone wave function in light-cone gauge.

Tuomas Lappi

SciPost Phys. Proc. 8, 003 (2022) · published 11 July 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

Ultraperipheral collisions at the LHC and RHIC offer the highest currently available energy for photon-nucleon and photon-nucleus collisions. Thus they are a valuable tool for studying the gluonic structure of hadrons and nuclei at small x. We discuss recent theoretical work towards understanding such exclusive processes at NLO accuracy in QCD perturbation theory. These theoretical advances are also immediately relevant for understanding the physics of deep inelastic scattering at small x. We also discuss experimental results in ultraperipheral collisions, most prominently for exclusive vector meson production.