The production of a D+D− pair by photon - photon interactions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is investigated considering ultraperipheral proton - proton (pp), proton - lead (pPb) and lead - lead (PbPb) collisions. Assuming that the scattering amplitude for the γγ→D+D− process can be described by the Brodsky - Lepage formalism in the heavy - quark approximation, we derive the associated differential distributions and total cross - sections. In particular, in addition to the rapidity and transverse momentum distributions, usually presented in the literature, we also present predictions for the total transverse momentum and momentum imbalance distributions. Our results indicate that a future experimental analysis of this final state is, in principle, feasible during the high luminosity run of LHC.
@article{arxiv.2605.28568,
title = {Double D meson production in ultraperipheral $pp$, $pPb$ and $PbPb$ collisions},
author = {Ya-Ping Xie and Victor P. Goncalves},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.28568},
year = {2026}
}