Diffractive quarkonium production in association with a photon at the LHC

The rates for diffractive quarkonium plus prompt-photon associated production at the LHC are estimated. The theoretical framework considered in the J/Ψ (or ϒ) production associated with a direct photon at the hadron collider is the non-relativistic QCD (NRQCD) factorization formalism. The corresponding single diffractive cross section is computed based on the hard diffractive scattering factorization supplemented by absorptive corrections. Such processes are sensitive to the gluon content of the Pomeron at small Bjorken-x and they may also be a good place to test the different available mechanisms for quarkonium production at hadron colliders.