Coherent photoproduction of light vector mesons off nuclear targets in the dipole picture

Abstract

We study the coherent photoproduction of light vector mesons in Pb-Pb collisions in the framework of color dipole approach. We employ the Glauber–Gribov formalism supplemented by an effective suppression factor $R_G$ accounting for the gluon shadowing correction. We adjust the latter to reproduce the deep inelastic structure function $F_2$ (E665) and ρ meson photoproduction (ALICE) data. We achieve a good description of the available data points with $R_G=0.85$ at scale $M_{\rho }^2/4=0.15$ GeV². In addition, employing this suppression factor, we present predictions for coherent $\rho \left(2S\right)$, $\omega (1S,2S)$ and $\varphi (1S,2S)$ photoproduction observables using the holographic vector meson wave functions.