2009/08/26 by U. D. Jentschura, V. G. Serbo
Physics and Astronomy · #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Particle Detector Development and Performance #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #hep-ph #nucl-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1140/epjc/s10052-009-1147-3
published as Eur.Phys.J.C64:309-317,2009 · 9 pages, LaTeX
arxiv created 2009/08/26 · openalex publication_date 2009/09/18 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We study in detail the influence of the nuclear form factor both on the Born cross section and on the Coulomb corrections to the photo-production of muon pairs off heavy nuclei (gamma Z -> mu+ mu- Z) and in heavy-ion collisions (ZZ -> ZZ mu+ mu-). Our findings indicate a number of issues which have not been sufficiently described as yet in the literature: (i) the use of a realistic form factor, based on the Fermi charge distribution for the nucleus, is absolutely indispensable for reliable theoretical predictions; (ii) we checked quantitatively that the equivalent photon approximation has a very good accuracy for the discussed processes; and (iii) we present a leading logarithmic calculation of the Coulomb corrections which correspond to multi-photon exchange of the produced mu+/- with the nuclei. These corrections are found to be small (on the percent level). Our result justifies using the Born approximation for numerical simulations of the discussed process at the RHIC and LHC colliders. Finally, we calculate the total cross section for muon pair production at RHIC and LHC.