Photon-initiated processes at high mass

Abstract

We consider the influence of photon-initiated processes on high-mass particle production. We discuss in detail the photon parton distribution function (PDF) at relatively high parton $x$, relevant to such processes, and evaluate its uncertainties. In particular we show that, as the dominant contribution to the input photon distribution is due to coherent photon emission, at phenomenologically relevant scales the photon PDF is already well determined in this region, with the corresponding uncertainties under good control. We then demonstrate the implications of this result for the example processes of high-mass lepton and $W$ boson pair production at the LHC and FCC. While for the former process the photon-initiated contribution is expected to be small, in the latter case we find that it is potentially significant, in particular at larger masses.