Diffractive J/psi production through the color-octet mechanism at hadron colliders - art. no. 114016

We propose the color-octet mechanism combined with the two-gluon exchange m odel for the diffractive J/psi production in hadron collisions. Ln the lead ing logarithmic approximation in QCD, we find that the diffractive J/psi pr oduction rate is related to the off-diagonal gluon density in the proton an d to the nonperturbative color-octet matrix element of J/psi. The rate is f ound to be very sensitive to the,gluon density at very small values of x [d own to x= O(10(-6))]. As a result, this process may provide a wide window f or testing the two-gluon exchange model, and may be particularly useful in studying the small-x physics. It may also be a golden place to test the col or-octet mechanism proposed by solving the psi'(J/psi) surplus problem at t he Fermilab Tevatron. [S0556-2821(98)10521-0].