Photoproduction of ρ0 mesons in ultraperipheral heavy ion collisions at energies available at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC)

We investigate the photoproduction of rho mesons in ultraperipheral heavy ion collisions at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) energies in the dipole approach and within two phenomenological models based on the color glass condensate (CGC) formalism. We estimate the integrated cross section and rapidity distribution for meson production and compare our predictions with the data from the STAR Collaboration. In particular, we demonstrate that the total cross section at RHIC is strongly dependent on the energy behavior of the dipole-target cross section at low energies, which is not well determined in the dipole approach. In contrast, the predictions at midrapidities at RHIC and in the full rapidity at LHC are under theoretical control and can be used to test QCD dynamics at high energies.