Testing Charmonium Production Mechanism via Polarized $J/\psi$ Pair Production at the LHC

Abstract

At present the color-octet mechanism is still an important and debatable part in the non-relativistic QCD(NRQCD). We find in this work that the polarized double charmonium production at the LHC may pose a stringent test on the charmonium production mechanism. Result shows that the transverse momentum($p_T$) scaling behaviors of double $J/\psi$ differential cross sections in color-singlet and -octet production mechanisms deviate distinctively from each other while $p_T$ is larger than 7 GeV. In color-octet mechanism, the two $J/\psi$s in one pair are mostly transversely polarized when $p_T\gg 2 m_c$, as expected from the fragmentation limit point of view. In color-singlet mechanism, there is about one half of the charmonium pairs with at least one $J/\psi$ being longitudinally polarized at moderate transverse momentum. The energy dependence of the polarized $J/\psi$ pair production is found to be weak, and this process is found to be experimentally attainable in the early phase of the LHC operation.