Photoproduction of $J/\psi$ in d+Au ultraperipheral collisions at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider

Abstract

We argue that the STAR data on $J/\psi$ photoproduction in $d+Au$ ultraperipheral collisions (UPCs) at the momentum transfer $t \neq 0$ primarily probes elastic and possibly nucleon-dissociative $J/\psi$ photoproduction on quasi-free nucleons, while being essentially insensitive to expectedly weak nuclear modifications of the gluon distribution in the deuteron. Analyzing the STAR detector capabilities for selection of UPC events, we explore the possibility that the contribution of nucleon-dissociative $J/\psi$ photoproduction is negligibly small and obtain a very good description of the $t$ dependence of the STAR total cross section.