Exclusive dimuon production in ultraperipheral Pb+Pb collisions at $sqrt{s_{mathrm{NN}}} = 5.02$ TeV with ATLAS

Exclusive dimuon production in ultraperipheral collisions (UPC), resulting from photon-photon interactions in the strong electromagnetic fields of colliding high-energy lead nuclei, PbPb(γγ) → μ+μ-(Pb(∗)Pb(∗)), is studied using Lint = 0.48 nb-1 of √sNN = 5.02 TeV lead-lead collision data at the LHC with the ATLAS detector. Dimuon pairs are measured in the fiducial region pT,μ > 4 GeV, |ημ| < 2.4, invariant mass mμμ > 10 GeV, and pT,μμ < 2 GeV. The primary background from single-dissociative processes is extracted from the data using a template fitting technique. Differential cross sections are presented as a function of mμμ, absolute pair rapidity (|yμμ|), scattering angle in the dimuon rest frame (|cos $μμ∗|), and the colliding photon energies. The total cross section of the UPC γγ → μ+μ- process in the fiducial volume is measured to be σfidμμ = 34.1±0.3(stat.)±0.7(syst.) μb. Generally good agreement is found with calculations from STARlight, which incorporate the leading-order Breit-...