Valentin Knünz (Vienna):

Prospects for Quarkonia Polarization Measurements at the LHC

Abstract:

Despite considerable experimental and theoretical efforts, quarkonium production in hadron interactions is not yet satisfactorily understood. Several models have had limited success in describing simultaneously differential cross sections and polarization properties of quarkonia measured at previous high energy hadron colliders. In this contribution the presently discussed models are introduced and their predictions compared to published experimental results. Due to recent developments in the understanding of quarkonium polarization, the precise measurement of the spin alignment properties of vector quarkonia at the LHC is expected to help to discriminate between different models. A new formalism describing quarkonium polarization in terms of frame-invariant quantities is presented, and implications on measurements at the LHC experiments are discussed.

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