Publication
Observation of Light-by-Light Scattering in Ultraperipheral Pb+Pb Collisions with the ATLAS Detector
| Summary: | This Letter describes the observation of the light-by-light scattering process, γγ→γγ, in Pb+Pb collisions at √sNN=5.02 TeV. The analysis is conducted using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.73 nb−1, collected in November 2018 by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. Light-by-light scattering candidates are selected in events with two photons produced exclusively, each with transverse energy EγT>3 GeV and pseudorapidity |ηγ|<2.4, diphoton invariant mass above 6 GeV, and small diphoton transverse momentum and acoplanarity. After applying all selection criteria, 59 candidate events are observed for a background expectation of 12±3 events. The observed excess of events over the expected background has a significance of 8.2 standard deviations. The measured fiducial cross section is 78±13(stat)±7(syst)±3(lumi) nb. |
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| Main Authors: | Onofre, A. |
| Other Authors: | Castro, Nuno Filipe; ATLAS Collaboration |
| Subject: | Ciências Naturais::Ciências Físicas |
| Year: | 2019 |
| Country: | Portugal |
| Document type: | article |
| Access type: | open access |
| Associated institution: | Universidade do Minho |
| Language: | English |
| Origin: | RepositóriUM - Universidade do Minho |
| Summary: | This Letter describes the observation of the light-by-light scattering process, γγ→γγ, in Pb+Pb collisions at √sNN=5.02 TeV. The analysis is conducted using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.73 nb−1, collected in November 2018 by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. Light-by-light scattering candidates are selected in events with two photons produced exclusively, each with transverse energy EγT>3 GeV and pseudorapidity |ηγ|<2.4, diphoton invariant mass above 6 GeV, and small diphoton transverse momentum and acoplanarity. After applying all selection criteria, 59 candidate events are observed for a background expectation of 12±3 events. The observed excess of events over the expected background has a significance of 8.2 standard deviations. The measured fiducial cross section is 78±13(stat)±7(syst)±3(lumi) nb. |
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