Heavy Quark Photoproduction in Coherent Interactions at High Energies

TL;DR

This paper calculates heavy quark photoproduction in high-energy proton-proton collisions using saturation models, showing that experimental analysis is feasible and sensitive to parton dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a calculation of inclusive and diffractive heavy quark photoproduction at Tevatron and LHC energies using the color dipole picture with saturation models, extending previous work.

Findings

Cross sections are within experimental reach at Tevatron and LHC.

Results are sensitive to the underlying parton saturation dynamics.

Rapidity distributions provide insights into the gluon saturation effects.

Abstract

We calculate the inclusive and diffractive photoproduction of heavy quarks in proton-proton collisions at Tevatron and LHC energies, where the photon reaches energies larger than those ones accessible at DESY-HERA. The integrated cross section and the rapidity distributions for charm and bottom production are computed within the color dipole picture employing three phenomenological saturation models based on the Color Glass Condensate formalism. Our results demonstrate that the experimental analyzes of these reactions is feasible and that the cross sections are sensitive to the underlying parton dynamics.