STAR identifed particle measurements at high transverse momentum in p+p $\sqrt{s}$ = 200 GeV

TL;DR

This paper reports STAR's measurements of identified particle spectra at high transverse momentum in p+p collisions at 200 GeV, providing data crucial for testing and refining perturbative QCD models and fragmentation functions.

Contribution

It presents the first detailed comparison of NLO pQCD calculations with identified baryon spectra in p+p collisions, utilizing new flavor-separated fragmentation functions.

Findings

NLO models successfully describe inclusive hadron production.

Flavor-separated fragmentation functions improve baryon spectrum predictions.

Data supports the validity of recent FF parameterizations from OPAL.

Abstract

We present the STAR measurement of transverse momentum spectra at mid-rapidity for identified particles in p+p collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 200 GeV. These high statistics data are ideal for comparing to existing leading- and next-to-leading order (NLO) perturbative QCD calculations. Next-to-leading models have been successful in describing inclusive hadron production using parameterized fragmentation functions (FF) for quarks and gluons. However, in order to describe baryon spectra at NLO, knowledge of flavor separated FF is essential. Such FF have recently been parameterized using data by the OPAL experiment and allow for the first time to obtain good agreement between NLO and identified baryons from p+p collisions.