Single-Transverse-Spin Asymmetries in Exclusive Photo-production of J/psi in Ultra-Peripheral Collisions in the Fixed-Target Mode at the LHC and in the Collider Mode at RHIC

Understand

We investigate the potentialities offered by the study of J/psi exclusive photo-production in ultra-peripheral collisions at a fixed-target experiment using the proton and lead LHC beams (generically denoted as AFTER@LHC) on hydrogen targets and at RHIC in the collider mode.

• We compare the expected counting rates in both set-ups.
• Studying Single-Transverse-Spin Asymmetries (A_N) in such a process provides a direct path to the proton Generalised Parton Distribution (GPD) E_g(x,xi,t).
• We evaluate the expected precision on A_N for realistic conditions with the LHCb detector in pH(pol) and PbH(pol) collisions.