Evidence for light-by-light scattering and searches for axion-like particles in ultraperipheral PbPb collisions at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}} =$ 5.02 TeV

Evidence for the light-by-light scattering process, γγ→γγ , in ultraperipheral PbPb collisions at a centre-of-mass energy per nucleon pair of 5.02TeV is reported. The analysis is conducted using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 390μb−1 recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC. Light-by-light scattering processes are selected in events with two photons exclusively produced, each with transverse energy ETγ>2GeV , pseudorapidity |ηγ|5GeV , diphoton transverse momentum pTγγ