Exploring femtoscopy as a measurement tool for ultra-peripheral collisions

Femtoscopy provides a powerful, precision tool for extracting spatiotemporal information about ultra-relativistic nuclear collisions. In ultra-peripheral collisions, vector meson photoproduction probes gluon distributions of the interacting nuclei. This work explores the potential for investigating gluon distributions through application of the femtscopic toolkit to double vector meson photoproduction events.

A Correlation Analysis Tool using the Schroedinger equation (CATS) is used to generate two-particle vector meson ($ \rho ^{0} \rho ^{0}$, $J/ \psi J/ \psi $, $ \rho ^{0}J/ \psi $) correlation functions. Sources corresponding to black disk, Gaussian, or Woods-Saxon gluon distributions are chosen to explore possible signals of gluon saturation. Two sources at large separation, b, are used to explore interesting impact parameter dependent effects. Changing the source sizes simulates expectations for pp, pA, and AA collisions. 

Additionally, extraction of interaction potentials between vector mesons will be discussed. Statistical requirements, extensions of the study, and connections to recent, complimentary measurement strategies will be touched upon.