Heavy-Flavour Hadron Production Cross-Sections in Proton-Proton Collisions at Center-of-Mass Energy of 8 TeV

International Journal of Physics | Vol. 3, No. 12, December 2012 | pp. 91–98

DOI: 10.46882/2012/IJP/000032

Research Article

Title: Heavy-Flavour Hadron Production Cross-Sections in Proton-Proton Collisions at Center-of-Mass Energy of 8 TeV

Names of Authors: S. P. McCarthy¹, A. M. Geller²

Authors’ Affiliations: ¹European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), CH-1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland; ²Department of Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China

Abstract: Measuring heavy-flavour hadron production cross-sections provides a stringent quantitative test of perturbative quantum chromodynamics (pQCD) scaling limits. This study presents the absolute differential production cross-sections for D0, D+, and D*+ mesons. The measurements use data gathered from proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. The data were recorded by a high-resolution forward spectrometer tracking system. The kinematic range investigated covers a transverse momentum span of 2.0 GeV/c < pT < 12.0 GeV/c within a rapid interval of 2.0 < y < 4.5. The reconstruction of charm mesons relied on distinct hadronic decay channels, specifically D0 decaying into K- and π+. The experimental cross-section results are evaluated against theoretical next-to-leading-order calculations (FONLL). The empirical cross-sections exceed the baseline FONLL predictions by a systematic factor of 1.35 ± 0.12. However, they stay consistent within the broader theoretical uncertainty bands of the model. The ratio of production yields between D+ and D0 mesons remains uniform across different transverse momentum values, yielding an average ratio of 0.44 ± 0.03. These precise measurements improve the calibration of parton distribution functions. They also establish baseline targets for evaluating cold nuclear matter effects in heavy-ion collision experiments.

Keywords: Hadron production; charm mesons; quantum chromodynamics; cross-sections; proton-proton collisions; forward spectrometer

Manuscript Timeline: Received: September 15, 2012; Revised: October 30, 2012; Accepted: November 15, 2012; Published: December 17, 2012

Citation: McCarthy, S. P., & Geller, A. M. (2012). Heavy-Flavour Hadron Production Cross-Sections in Proton-Proton Collisions at Center-of-Mass Energy of 8 TeV. International Journal of Physics, 3(12), 91–98.

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