Observation of τ Lepton Pair Production in Ultraperipheral Pb-Pb Collisions at sqrt[s_{NN}]=5.02 TeV


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Tumasyan A., Adam W., Andrejkovic J., Bergauer T., Chatterjee S., Damanakis K., ...More

Physical review letters, vol.131, no.15, pp.151803, 2023 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 131 Issue: 15
  • Publication Date: 2023
  • Doi Number: 10.1103/physrevlett.131.151803
  • Journal Name: Physical review letters
  • Journal Indexes: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus, Academic Search Premier, Aerospace Database, Chemical Abstracts Core, Compendex, INSPEC, zbMATH, DIALNET
  • Page Numbers: pp.151803
  • Middle East Technical University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

We present an observation of photon-photon production of τ lepton pairs in ultraperipheral lead-lead collisions. The measurement is based on a data sample with an integrated luminosity of 404 μb^{-1} collected by the CMS experiment at a center-of-mass energy per nucleon pair of sqrt[s_{NN}]=5.02 TeV. The γγ→τ^{+}τ^{-} process is observed for τ^{+}τ^{-} events with a muon and three charged hadrons in the final state. The measured fiducial cross section is σ(γγ→τ^{+}τ^{-})=4.8±0.6(stat)±0.5(syst) μb, where the second (third) term corresponds to the statistical (systematic) uncertainty in σ(γγ→τ^{+}τ^{-}) in agreement with leading-order QED predictions. Using σ(γγ→τ^{+}τ^{-}), we estimate a model-dependent value of the anomalous magnetic moment of the τ lepton of a_{τ}=0.001_{-0.089}^{+0.055}.