Inclusive and exclusive dilepton photoproduction at high energies

Abstract

In this work we investigate the inclusive and exclusive photoproduction of dileptons, which is relevant for the physics programme to be studied in the proposed electron-proton collider, the LHeC. In the inclusive case, the process is sensitive to the parton distribution functions in the photon whereas the exclusive channel is connected to the small-$x$ QCD dynamics. For the latter, we investigate the role played by saturation physics at a very high energy scenario. The estimates for production cross sections and the number of events are presented.

Comments: 5 pages, version to be published in Physical Review D