Dipion and dikaon photoproduction in ultra-peripheral Pb-Pb collisions with ALICE

Abstract

High energy photons originating from the electromagnetic field of ultrarelativistic lead nuclei can interact with the other lead ion. These reactions are studied in the ultra-peripheral heavy ion collisions to probe the physics of strong interactions. The analysis of dipion and dikaon photoproduction was carried out using the ALICE 2015 Pb-Pb data at center-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s}~=~5.02$ TeV, and 2017 Xe-Xe data at $\sqrt{s}~=~5.44$ TeV. We present the $\rho^0$ meson and direct $\pi^{+}\pi^{-}$ measurements, as well as the prospects of studying exclusive $K^{+}K^{-}$ photoproduction, with sensitivity towards higher dikaon invariant mass above the $\phi(1020)$ threshold.