Beauty photoproduction using decays into electrons at HERA

TL;DR

This paper reports on the measurement of beauty quark photoproduction at HERA using electron decays, providing cross sections and comparing results with QCD predictions and Monte Carlo models.

Contribution

First measurement of beauty photoproduction using electron decays at HERA, with detailed cross section analysis and comparison to theoretical models.

Findings

Measured total and differential cross sections for beauty and charm production.

Extracted fractions of events containing b and c quarks using likelihood fits.

Results generally agree with next-to-leading-order QCD calculations.

Abstract

Photoproduction of beauty quarks in events with two jets and an electron associated with one of the jets has been studied with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 120pb^-1. The fractions of events containing b quarks, and also of events containing c quarks, were extracted from a likelihood fit using variables sensitive to electron identification as well as to semileptonic decays. Total and differential cross sections for beauty and charm production were measured and compared with next-to-leading-order QCD calculations and Monte Carlo models.