Light-by-light scattering in ultraperipheral heavy ion collisions -- new possibilities

Abstract

Light-by-light scattering is a relatively new area of experimental physics. Our recent, theoretical research shows that studying two photon measurements in regions with lower transverse momentum ($p_{t,\gamma}$) and invariant mass ($M_{\gamma\gamma}$) allows us to observe not only the main contribution of photon scattering, known as fermionic loops but also mechanisms like the VDM-Regge (double-photon hadronic fluctuation). In addition, diphoton measurements at low diphoton masses are crucial for studies of light meson resonance contributions in $\gamma\gamma \to \gamma\gamma$ scattering. We also focus on the interference between different contributions. For future experiments with the ALICE FoCal and ALICE-3 detectors, we have calculated background contamination and have explored possibilities to minimize their impact.