Exclusive vector meson photoproduction at the LHC and the FCC: A closer look on the final state

Abstract

Over the past years the LHC experiments have reported experimental evidences for processes associated to photon-photon and photon-hadron interactions, showing their potential to investigate the production of low- and high-mass systems in exclusive events. In the particular case of the photoproduction of vector mesons, the experimental study of this final state is expected to shed light on the description of the QCD dynamics at small values of the Bjorken-$x$ variable. In this paper we extend previous studies for the exclusive $J/\Psi$ and $\Upsilon$ photoproduction in $pp$ collisions based on the nonlinear QCD dynamics by performing a detailed study of the final state distributions that can be measured experimentally at the LHC and at the Future Circular Collider. Predictions for the rapidity and transverse momentum distributions of the vector mesons and of final-state dimuons are presented for $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} =$ 7, 13, and 100 TeV.