Measurement of exclusive production of scalar χc0 meson in proton-(anti)proton collisions via χc0→π+π− decay

We consider a measurement of exclusive production of scalar χc(0++) meson in the proton-proton collisions at LHC and RHIC and in the proton-antiproton collisions at the Tevatron via χc0→π+π− decay. The corresponding amplitude for exclusive double-diffractive χc0 meson production was obtained within the kt-factorization approach including virtualities of active gluons and the corresponding cross section is calculated with unintegrated gluon distribution functions (UGDFs) known from the literature. The four-body pp→ppπ+π− reaction constitutes an irreducible background to the exclusive χc0 meson production. We include absorption effects due to proton-proton interaction and pion-pion rescattering. We calculate several differential distributions for pp(p¯)→pp(p¯)χc0 process including the absorptive corrections. The influence of kinematical cuts on the signal-to-background ratio is investigated. Corresponding experimental consequences are discussed.