Charm,bottom and top production in high energy electron proton collisions

Differential cross sections for electroproduction of charm, bottom and top quarks are calculated via all contributing 2 → 2 and 2 → 3 QCD subprocesses. Fragmentation of heavy quarks to heavy hadrons and effects due to weak chain decays of the heavy quarks are taken into account. We also calculated background contributions given by the production of two or three light-quark jets both via the neutral and charged current processes. We point out that, similarly to the case of hadron colliders, it will be necessary to require final state lepton(s) to suppress the jet background. To separate charm and bottom production we have to require at least one hard muon or two isolated leptons and one jet in the final state. We show that two or more jet production via the charged current mechanism and bottom production with hard gluon bremssrahlung are the most important background contributions in top search. However, we also show that they become negligible by requiring one lepton, two or three jets and large missing energy in the final state. We estimate that the discovery limit on the top quark mass value is about 70 GeV at HERA.     

Consistent treatment of charm evolution in deep inelastic scattering

We present a formulation which allows heavy quark mass effects to be explicitly incorporated in both the coefficient functions and the splitting functions in the parton evolution equations. We obtain a consistent procedure for evolution through the threshold regions for and production in deep inelastic scattering, which allows the prediction of the charm and bottom quark densities. We use the new formulation to perform a next-to-leading order global parton analysis of deep inelastic and related hard scattering data. We find that the optimum fit has . We give predictions for the charm components of the proton structure functions and as functions of and and, in particular, find that is in good agreement with the existing measurements. We examine the range of validity of the photon-gluon fusion model for electroproduction. We emphasize the value of a precision measurement of the charm component at HERA. Received: 12 May 1997 / Revised version: 12 June 1997     

Parity-violating spin asymmetries in polarized proton-proton scattering with hadronic final states

Longitudinal, parity-violating single spin asymmetries in proton-proton collisions for RHIC kinematics are considered. The focus of this study is on the production of a single jet as well as a hadron containing a charm quark. While the asymmetry for jets is rather small, considerably larger effects can be expected for the production of charm because of the strongly reduced QCD background. The general outcome of a fixed order calculation is not much affected by the resummation of large threshold logarithms.     

Importance of heavy quark longitudinal structure function measurements at future circular collider energies

In this article,we consider the ratio of structure functions for heavy quark pair production at low values of The importance of this ratio for charm and beauty pair production is examined according to the Hadron Electron Ring Accelerator(HERA) data.The behavior of these ratios is considered due to the hard pomeron behavior of the gluon distribution function.The results are in good agreement with the HERA data.Expanding this data to the range of new energies underscores the importance of these measurements for heavy quarks.The ratio of charm and beauty structure functions at the proposed Large Hadron electron Collider(LHeC) is considered as a function of invariant center-of-mass energy.For top pair production this ratio is extracted with known kinematics of the LHeC and Future Circular Collider electron-hadron(FCC-eh) colliders.Comparison of the results obtained for the ratio of top structure functions in LHeC and FCC-eh are proportional to the specified inelasticity y range.     

Charm production in a quark-gluon plasma

A calculation is made for charm quark production in a longitudinally expanding quark-gluon plasma. A comparison is made with hadronic charm production in ultra-relativistic nuclear collisions assuming an extrapolation from p-p collisions and no plasma formation. The charm yield from a QGP begins to dominate purely hadronic production for plasma temperatures above 315–440 MeV, depending on the bombarding energy of the colliding nuclei and the value assumed for the charm quark mass. Implications for plasma signals, most notably dilepton emission and J/ψ suppression, are discussed.     

Formation of charmonium states in heavy-ion collisions and thermalization of charm

We examine the possibility to utilize in-medium charmonium formation in heavy-ion interactions at collider energy as a probe of the properties of the medium. This is possible because the formation process involves recombination of charm quarks which imprints a signal on the resulting normalized transverse momentum distribution containing information about the momentum distribution of the quarks. We have contrasted the transverse momentum spectra of J/ψ, characterized by 〈p _T ²〉, which result from the formation process in which the charm quark distributions are taken at opposite limits with regard to thermalization in the medium. The first uses charm quark distributions unchanged from their initial production in a pQCD process, appropriate if their interaction with the medium is negligible. The second uses charm quark distributions which are in complete thermal equilibrium with the transversely expanding medium, appropriate if a very strong interaction between charm quarks and medium exists. We find that the resulting 〈p _T ²〉 of the formed J/ψ should allow one to differentiate between these extremes, and that this differentiation is not sensitive to variations in the detailed dynamics of in-medium formation. We include a comparison of predictions of this model with preliminary PHENIX measurements, which indicates compatibility with a substantial fraction of in-medium formation.     

Modification of the spectra of correlated charm-anticharm quark pairs in the quark-gluon plasma

Heavy quarks play an important role in probing the properties of strongly interacting quark-gluon plasma(QGP)created in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions.We study the interactions of single heavy(charm)quarks and correlated charm and anticharm(ccˉ)quark pairs with the medium constituents of QGP by performing fireball+Langevin simulations of the pertinent Brownian motion with elastic collisions.Besides studying the traditional observables,the nuclear modification factor and the elliptic flow of single heavy quarks in QGP for different thermal relaxation rates,we also study the broadening of the azimuthal correlations of charm and anticharm quark pairs in the QGP medium for different relaxation rates and transverse momenta classes.We quantified the smearing of ccˉpair azimuthal correlations with an increasing thermal relaxation rate:while the(nearly)back-to-back correlations among ccˉpairs are almost completely washed out at low transverse momentum(pT),these correlations at high pT largely survive the pair diffusion.This provides a novel observable for diagnosing the properties of QGP.     

Masses in structure functions

We derive an approximate formula for the quark mass in ξ-formalism. Using the QCD-based form of structure function, we analyse the SLAC-MIT data to estimate the experimentally allowed ranges of quark mass. The possible variation of our results with QCD cut-off parameter, gluon distribution, hard intrinsic charm component of the proton wavefunction and the higher twist effects are also discussed.     

Charm production by partons in neutrino scattering

We present quantitative quark-parton model calculations of charm production contributions in neutrino scattering, to compare with the experimental indications of possible charm production, namely dimuon events and ?nN y-distributions. Within the uncertainties in the present data and in the quark density distributions, charm production in the Glashow-Iliopoulos-Maiani scheme appears to offer a viable explanation of both effects.     

Massive quark production in electron positron annihilation to order \alpha_s^2

Recent analytical and numerical results for the three-loop polarization function allow to present a phenomenological analysis of the cross section for massive quark production in electron positron annihilation to order . Numerical predictions based on fixed order perturbation theory are presented for charm and bottom production above 5 and 11.5 GeV, respectively. The contribution from these energy regions to , the running QED coupling constant at scale , are given. The dominant terms close to threshold, i.e. in an expansion for small quark velocity , are presented. Received: 12 November 1997     

Neutrino production of charm

Cross Sections for the production of charm and bottom in neutrino (antineutrino) reactions are calculated in asymptotically free Quantum Chromodynamics. Total and differential cross sections are given for Cabibbo suppressed valence and Cabibbo favoured strange quark ocean production. The next order Quantum Chromodynamic correction to the charm production cross section is calculated. Arguments and estimates for the distribution of final state charmed hadrons are considered.     

QCD radiative corrections to charged current heavy quark production

The QCD radiative corrections to charged current heavy quark production are given in the limit that the weak partner is massless, i.e. using a bottom structure function for top quark production. The results for charm production in neutrino nucleon scattering agree with those published before, but our method enables us to study all outgoing particles. The corrections to top production at the proposed LEP/LHC electroproton collider are discussed.     

Energy loss of charm quarks from J/ψ production in cold nuclear matter

J/ψ suppression in p-A collisions is studied by considering the nuclear effects on parton distribution,energy loss of beam proton and the finial state energy loss of color octet cc. The leading-order computations for J/ψproduction cross-section ratios RW/Be(x F) are presented and compared with the selected E866 experimental data with the cc remaining colored on its entire path in the medium. It is shown that the combination of the different nuclear effects accounts quite well for the observed J/ψ suppression in the experimental data. It is found that the J/ψ suppression on RW/Be(x F) from the initial state nuclear effects is more important than that induced by the energy loss of color octet cc in the large x F region. Whether the cc pair energy loss is linear or quadratic with the path length is not determined. The obtained cc pair energy loss per unit path length α = 2.78±0.81 Ge V/fm, which indicates that the heavy quark in cold nuclear matter can lose more energy compared to the outgoing light quark.     

Measurements of the Z partial decay width into c\bar c and multiplicity of charm quarks per b decay

The partial decay width of the Z into quark pair and the number of charm quarks per b decay are measured with the DELPHI detector at LEP 1. Particle identification provides clear , , and signatures. The charm hadron production rate is measured in each channel by a fit to the scaled energy, impact parameter information and the invariant mass spectrum. Two measurements of are presented, from the production rate and from the overall charm counting, including strange charm baryon production, in events. The multiplicity , which includes hidden and strange charm baryon production, is inferred from the charm counting in events. The final results are and . Received: 1 June 1999 / Published online: 8 December 1999     

Semileptonic decays of heavy quarks in quantum chromodynamics

We investigate the semileptonic decays of heavy quarks in the leading non-trivial order in quantum chromodynamics. Effects of gluon corrections and the initial quark Fermi motion on the semileptonic rates and decay distributions are calculated. The resulting lepton energy spectrum for the charm semileptonic decay is compared with data to extract the mass of the charm quark. This is combined with the semileptonic branching ratio to predict the charm-quark lifetime. We find the lepton energy spectrum very stable with respect to gluon corrections. Expected spectra from the semileptonic decays of bottom and top quarks are presented. We also study the semileptonic decay process Q → q?v_? + G, involving the emission of a single hard non-collinear gluon. This process should be observable with a branching ratio of a few percent in the decays of top (and heavier) quarks.     

Leading-order QCD analysis of neutrino-induced dimuon events

The results of a leading-order QCD analysis of neutrino-induced charm production are presented. They are based on a sample of 4111 - and 871 -induced opposite-sign dimuon events with , and , observed in the CHARM II detector exposed to the CERN wide band neutrino and antineutrino beams. The analysis yields the value of the charm quark mass and the Cabibbo–Kobayashi–Maskawa matrix element . The strange quark content of the nucleon is found to be suppressed with respect to non-strange sea quarks by a factor . Received: 1 February 1999 / Published online: 14 October 1999     

Search for scalar top and scalar bottom quarks in pp collisions at square root s=1.8 TeV

We have searched for direct pair production of scalar top and scalar bottom quarks in 88 pb-1 of pp collisions at sqrt[s]=1.8 TeV with the CDF detector. We looked for events with a pair of heavy flavor jets and missing energy, consistent with scalar top (bottom) quark decays to a charm (bottom) quark and a neutralino. The numbers of events that pass our selections show no significant deviation from standard model expectations. We compare our results to the next-to-leading order scalar quark production cross sections to exclude regions in scalar quark-neutralino mass parameter space.     

D and J/ψ production from deconfined matter in relativistic heavy ion collisions

We study the production of the D and J/ψ mesons from deconfined quark matter at CERN SPS energy. Using the MICOR microscopical coalescence model we determine the transverse momentum spectra of these charm mesons. We predict the slopes of their transverse momentum spectra in Pb+Pb collision at 158 GeV/nucleon beam energy.     

Producing heavy quark flavors in hadronic collisions—' A test of quantum chromodynamics

It is suggested, within the framework of QDC, that the production of heavy quark flavors in hardronic reactions proceeds via the materialization of a highly virtual gluon into a heavy quark-antiquark pair. Several phenomenological applications are discussed. In particular the charm production cross section at 400 GeV/c proton-nucleus collisions is calculated to be ? 120 nb/nucleon. Anti-proton-nucleon scattering is found to be especially suited for Ψ(J) and charm production, and provides an important and interesting test for the proposed production mechanism.     

Flavor-dependent photoproduction in heavy-ion collisions

Strong electromagnetic fields produced in the non-central heavy-ion collisions can induce vector meson photoproduction. In this paper, we study the photoproduction J/ψ and φ mesons in the relativistic heavy-ion collision from ultra-peripheral nuclear collisions to peripheral hadronic heavy ion collisions. And then include both initial hadronic production and thermal production in quark-gluon plasma (QGP). We find, for the charm anti-charm bound state J/ψ, the photoproduced J/ψs are mainly in the very low momentum region and clearly exceed the hadronic production. However, considering the thermal production of strange quark anti-quark pairs in QGP produced in relativistic heavy-ion collisions, the photoproduced φ is usually smaller than the thermal production and only evident at very peripheral collisions as even their photoproduction is much larger than J/ψ.