Can one measure timelike Compton scattering at LHC?

Exclusive photoproduction of dileptons, γN→l+l-N, is and will be measured in ultraperipheral collisions at hadron colliders, such as the Tevatron, Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, and the LHC. We demonstrate that the timelike deeply virtual Compton scattering mechanism γq→l+l-q where the lepton pair comes from the subprocess γq→γ*q dominates in some accessible kinematical regions, thus opening a new way to study generalized parton distributions in the nucleon. High energy kinematics enables one to probe parton distributions at small skewedness. This subprocess interferes at the amplitude level with the pure QED subprocess γγ*→l+l- where the virtual photon is radiated from the nucleon.