Exclusive $\rho$ and $J/\Psi$ photoproduction in ultraperipheral $pA$ collisions: Predictions of the gluon saturation models for the momentum transfer distributions

Abstract

In this letter we complement previous studies on exclusive vector meson photoproduction in hadronic collisions presenting a comprehensive analysis of the $t$ - spectrum measured in exclusive $\rho$ and $J/\Psi$ photoproduction in $pA$ collisions at the LHC. We compute the differential cross sections considering two phenomenological models for the gluon saturation effects and present predictions for $pPb$ and $pCa$ collisions. Moreover, we compare our predictions with the recent preliminary CMS data for the exclusive $\rho$ photoproduction. We demonstrate that the gluon saturation models are able to describe the CMS data at small - $t$. On the other hand, the models underestimate the few data point at large -- $t$. Our results indicate that future measurements of the large -- $t$ region can be useful to probe the presence or absence of a dip in the $t$ -- spectrum and discriminate between the different approaches to the gluon saturation effects.