Neutron emission associated with $\gamma\gamma\to\gamma\gamma$ scattering in UPC of heavy ions at the LHC

Abstract

We calculate cross sections for the production of different neutron classes $0n 0n$, $0nXn+Xn0n$ and $Xn Xn$, possible to measure in Zero Degree Calorimeters (ZDCs), associated with photon-photon scattering in UPC of lead on lead. The calculations are performed for the ATLAS kinematics. Our calculations for neutron classes are tested against existing data for $\rho^0$ production in UPC. We get a good agreement for absolute cross section as well as very good results for fractional cross section which gives confidence to the analogous calculation for diphoton production, corresponding to $\gamma \gamma \to \gamma \gamma$ scattering. We present both absolute as well as fractional cross sections for the different neutron classes. We also show different distributions in impact parameter, photon rapidity, transverse momentum, diphoton invariant mass and photon rapidity difference. The shapes of the photon distributions depend on the neutron classes which we quantify in this paper. It would be valuable to test our predictions using the ATLAS main detector and the ATLAS ZDCs.