Isolating the Odderon in central production in high energy pA and AA collisions

R. McNulty, V. A. Khoze, A. D. Martin, M. G. Ryskin
2020 European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields  
We study the rapidity dependence of the central exclusive production cross sections of C-even mesons in p A and A A collisions, where A is a heavy ion. We observe qualitatively different behaviour of the contributions arising from γ -Odderon and Pomeron-Pomeron fusion mechanisms. This can be used to extract the Odderon signal from the events of f 2 mesons exclusively produced in the forward region. Estimates, obtained using expected values of the Odderon cross section, indicate that the γ
more » ... on contribution may exceed by a few times the Pomeron-induced background in Pb-Pb collisions. Moreover, the Odderon effect can be clearly seen in terms of the asymmetry in p A and A A collisions with the beam and target reversed. It is particularly interesting to note that the asymmetry for γ -Odderon fusion reaches its maximum value close to 1 in the forward direction, whereas the asymmetry for the Pomeron-Pomeron fusion contribution is small. The role of additional interactions of the f 2 meson with nucleons in the heavy ion, and also the contributions from secondary Reggeons, are estimated. The photon-Odderon contribution has a large normalisation uncertainty but the enhanced cross-section in the forward region combined with a large asymmetry increases the chance of experimentally detecting the Odderon.
doi:10.1140/epjc/s10052-020-7846-5 fatcat:ddvaj2l5y5h5lhn3ajbgsw45hm