Ultra-peripheral collisions of heavy ions at RHIC and the LHC

Abstract

This paper deals with so-called Ultra-Peripheral Collisions (UPCs) of heavy ions. These can be defined as collisions in which no hadronic interactions occur because of the large spatial separation between the projectile and target. The interactions are instead mediated by the electromagnetic field. Two types of ultra-peripheral collisions can be distinguished: purely electro-magnetic interactions (two-photon interactions) and photonuclear interactions, in which a photon from the projectile interacts with the hadronic component of the target.