Observation of double J/$\psi$ meson production in pPb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{N}\mathrm{N}}}$ = 8.16 TeV

The first observation of the concurrent production of two J/$\psi$ mesons in proton-nucleus collisions is presented. The analysis is based on a proton-lead (pPb) data sample recorded at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 8.16 TeV by the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 174.6 nb${}^{-1}$. The two J/$\psi$ mesons are reconstructed in their ${\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-}$ decay channels with transverse momenta $p_{\mathrm{T}}$ $>$ 6.5 GeV and rapidity $\mid y\mid$ $<$ 2.4. Events where one of the J/$\psi$ mesons is reconstructed in the dielectron channel are also considered in the search. The pPb $\to$ J/$\psi$J/$\psi$ + X process is observed with a significance of 5.3 standard deviations. The measured inclusive fiducial cross section, using the four-muon channel alone, is $\sigma$(pPb $\to$ J/$\psi$J/$\psi$ + X) = 22.0 $\pm$ 8.9 (stat) $\pm$ 1.5 (syst) nb. A fit of the data to the expected rapidity separation for pairs of J/$\psi$ mesons produced in single (SPS) and double (DPS) parton scatterings yields ${\sigma }_{\text{SPS}}^{\mathrm{p}\mathrm{P}\mathrm{b}\to \mathrm{J}\mathrm{/}\psi \mathrm{J}\mathrm{/}\psi +\mathrm{X}}$ = 16.5 $\pm$ 10.8 (stat) $\pm$ 0.1 (syst) nb and ${\sigma }_{\text{DPS}}^{\mathrm{p}\mathrm{P}\mathrm{b}\to \mathrm{J}\mathrm{/}\psi \mathrm{J}\mathrm{/}\psi +\mathrm{X}}$ = 5.4 $\pm$ 6.2 (stat) $\pm$ 0.4 (syst) nb, respectively. This latter result can be transformed into a lower bound on the effective DPS cross section, closely related to the squared average interparton transverse separation in the collision, of ${\sigma }_{\text{eff}}$ $>$ 1.0 mb at 95% confidence level.