Estimating the BFKL effects on the vector meson + jet production in photon-induced interactions at the LHC

Abstract The associated vector meson + jet production in photon-induced interactions at the LHC is investigated and predictions for the cross-sections are derived considering the NLO corrections to the BFKL kernel. We explore the possibility that in a near future the FOCAL detector could be used to measure the jet at forward rapidities, with the associated meson being measured by a central or forward detector, and estimate the rapidity distributions for the $$\rho $$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mi>ρ</mml:mi> </mml:math> + jet and $$J/\Psi $$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>J</mml:mi> <mml:mo>/</mml:mo> <mml:mi>Ψ</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> + jet photoproduction in pp , Pbp and PbPb collisions. We demonstrate that the associated cross-sections are non-negligible and that a future experimental analysis can be useful to constrain the description of the BFKL kernel and improve our understanding of the QCD dynamics.