Associate $J/\psi + \gamma$ Production: A Clean Probe of Unpolarized and Polarized Gluon Densities

Abstract

Color-octet contributions to the associate $J/\psi+\gamma$ production are found to be negligible, compared to the ordinary color-singlet contribution. Within the color-singlet model the $J/\psi+\gamma$ production in the leading order is possible only through gluon-gluon fusion process. Therefore, the associate $J/\psi+\gamma$ production remains to be useful as a clean channel to probe the unpolarized and polarized gluon distribution inside proton (and photon), and to study heavy quarkonia production mechanism. We discuss in detail the associate production of $J/\psi+\gamma$ at $p \overline{p}$ (or $pp$) and $ep$ colliders. By requiring the $J/\psi$ to decay into an $e^+e^-$ or $\mu^+ \mu^-$ pair, we end up with an exceptionally clean final state. This process can therefore serve as a very clean probe of the gluon densities inside the proton as well as the photon. Numerical results are presented for the TEVATRON $p \overline{p}$ and HERA $ep$ colliders. This same mechanism can be used to probe the polarized gluon content of the proton in polarized $p + p (\bar p)$ collisions. We study in detail $J/\psi + \gamma$ production at both polarized fixed target and polarized collider energies for RHIC.