Effects of the magnetic field on $\pi^0$ production in ultraperipheral Pb-Pb collisions

Abstract

In this work, we study the effect of the magnetic field on the production of neutral pions in photon-photon interactions in ultraperipheral Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC. The calculation is performed within the equivalent photon approximation, including a magnetic-field dependence in the decay width $\Gamma(\pi^0\to\gamma\gamma)$, from which the corresponding production cross section is computed. We find that the reduction of the two-photon decay width in the presence of a strong magnetic field leads to a substantial reduction (by a factor of about 2-3) of the $\pi^0$ production cross section at LHC energies.