Photoproduction of top quarks in peripheral heavy ion collisions

In relativistic heavy ion collisions, top quarks can be produced by photon- gluon fusion when a photon from the Weizsacker-Williams virtual photon fiel d of one nucleus interacts vith a gluon in the other nucleus. Photoproducti on with heavy ions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be the first acc essible non-hadronic top production channel. We calculate the t (t) over ba r photoproduction cross sections, pair mass and top quark rapidity distribu tions in peripheral lead-lead and oxygen-oxygen collisions. The cross secti ons are sensitive to the top quark charge and the large-Q(2) gluon distribu tion in the nucleus. We find a cross section of 15 pb in oxygen-oxygen coll isions, leading to 210 pairs in a one month (10(6) s) LHC run. In pA collis ions, the rate is higher, 1100 pairs per month for pO. A comparison of the AA and pA data might allow for a study of gluon shadowing at high Q(2).