ATLAS collaboration (2847 authors)Aguilar-Saavedra, Juan AntonioAmor Dos Santos, Susana PatriciaAnjos, NunoAraque, Juan PedroCarvalho, JoãoCastro, Nuno FilipeConde Muiño, PatriciaDa Cunha Sargedas De Sousa, Mario JoseFiolhais, MiguelGalhardo, BrunoGomes, AgostinhoGonçalo, RicardoJorge, PedroMachado Miguens, JoanaMaio, AméliaManeira, JoséOleiro Seabra, Luis FilipeOnofre, AntónioPedro, RuteSantos, HelenaSaraiva, JoãoSilva, JoséTavares Delgado, AdemarVeloso, FilipeWolters, Helmut2019-02-042019-02-042017-08-14http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nphys4208http://hdl.handle.net/10400.26/27285Light-by-light scattering ($\gamma\gamma\rightarrow\gamma\gamma$) is a quantum-mechanical process that is forbidden in the classical theory of electrodynamics. This reaction is accessible at the Large Hadron Collider thanks to the large electromagnetic field strengths generated by ultra-relativistic colliding lead (Pb) ions. Using 480 $\mu$b$^{-1}$ of Pb+Pb collision data recorded at a centre-of-mass energy per nucleon pair of 5.02 TeV by the ATLAS detector, the ATLAS Collaboration reports evidence for the $\gamma\gamma\rightarrow\gamma\gamma$ reaction. A total of 13 candidate events are observed with an expected background of 2.6$\pm$0.7 events. After background subtraction and analysis corrections, the fiducial cross section of the process $\textrm{Pb+Pb}\,(\gamma\gamma)\rightarrow \textrm{Pb}^{(\ast)}\textrm{+}\textrm{Pb}^{(\ast)}\,\gamma\gamma$, for photon transverse energy $E_{\mathrm{T}}>$3 GeV, photon absolute pseudorapidity $|\eta|<$2.4, diphoton invariant mass greater than 6 GeV, diphoton transverse momentum lower than 2 GeV and diphoton acoplanarity below 0.01, is measured to be 70 $\pm$ 24 (stat.) $\pm$ 17 (syst.) nb, which is in agreement with Standard Model predictions.engjournal article2019-02-04