The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Oxana Smirnova

Oxana Smirnova

Senior Lecturer, Deputy Head of division

Oxana Smirnova

Evidence for light-by-light scattering in heavy-ion collisions with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Author

  • M Aaboud
  • G Aad
  • B. Abbott
  • J Abdallah
  • O Abdinov
  • B Abeloos
  • Torsten Åkesson
  • Simona Bocchetta
  • LENE BRYNGEMARK
  • Caterina Doglioni
  • Vincent Hedberg
  • Göran Jarlskog
  • Charles Kalderon
  • Ulf Mjörnmark
  • Oxana Smirnova
  • Oleksandr Viazlo

Summary, in English

Light-by-light scattering (γγ → γγ) is a quantum-mechanical process that is forbidden in the classical theory of electrodynamics. This reaction is accessible at the Large Hadron Collider thanks to the large electromagnetic field strengths generated by ultra-relativistic colliding lead ions. Using 480 μ1 of lead-lead collision data recorded at a centre-of-mass energy per nucleon pair of 5.02 TeV by the ATLAS detector, here we report evidence for light-by-light scattering. A total of 13 candidate events were observed with an expected background of 2.6 ± 0.7 events. After background subtraction and analysis corrections, the fiducial cross-section of the process Pb + Pb (γγ) → Pb(∗) + Pb(∗)γγ,for photon transverse energy ET > 3GeV, photon absolute pseudorapidity |η| <2.4, diphoton invariant mass greater than 6GeV, diphoton transverse momentum lower than 2GeV and diphoton acoplanarity below 0.01, is measured to be 70 ± 24 (stat.) ±17 (syst.) nb, which is in agreement with the standard model predictions. © 2017 Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature. All rights reserved.

Department/s

  • Particle and nuclear physics
  • eSSENCE: The e-Science Collaboration

Publishing year

2017

Language

English

Pages

852-858

Publication/Series

Nature Physics

Volume

13

Issue

9

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group

Topic

  • Subatomic Physics

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1745-2473