Hard diffractive $\rm \eta_{c,b}$ hadroproduction at the LHC

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the inclusive diffractive hadroproduction for $\rm \eta_{c}$ and $\rm \eta_{b}$ at the LHC energies. Based on the NRQCD factorization formalism and the resolved-Pomeron model for the quarkonium production mechanism, we estimate the rapidity, momentum fraction loss dependence of the cross section. We give prediction ratios for single and central diffractive processes with respect to non diffractive process. These inclusive processes are sensitive to gluon content of Pomeron for small-$x$ and Reggeon for large-$x$, useful to study small and large-$x$ physics and good to test different mechanism for $\rm \eta_{c}$ and $\rm \eta_{b}$ production at the LHC. They also serve as the background to related exclusive processes thus should be predicted. Our results demonstrate that the Reggeon contribution of diffractive processes can be sizable, even sometimes dominant over Pomeron, and that its study can be useful to better constrain the Reggeon parton content. The experimental study of Reggeon can be carried out in certain kinematic windows.