Searching for Axion-like Particles with Proton Tagging at the LHC

The existence of an axion-like particle (ALP) would induce anomalous scattering of light-by-light. This process can be probed at the LHC in central exclusive production of photon pairs in $p-p$ collisions by tagging the surviving protons using forward proton detectors. We show that the proposed search in central exclusive production of photon pairs is competitive and complementary to other collider bounds for masses above 600 GeV, especially for resonant ALP production between 600 GeV and 2 TeV.