Inclusive D*-meson production in ep scattering at low Q2 in the GM-VFN scheme at NLO

TL;DR

This paper presents NLO calculations for inclusive D*-meson production in ep scattering at low Q2 using the GM-VFN scheme, showing good agreement with ZEUS data.

Contribution

It introduces a NLO calculation in the GM-VFN scheme for low Q2 ep scattering, extending photoproduction approximations to this regime.

Findings

Good agreement with ZEUS data

Resummation of large logarithms of charm transverse momentum

Finite mass terms included in the hard scattering cross sections

Abstract

We have calculated the next-to-leading order cross sections for the inclusive production of D*-mesons in ep collisions at HERA for finite, although very small Q2. In this Q2-range, the same approximations as for photoproduction can be used. Our calculation is performed in the general-mass variable-flavour-number scheme. In this approach, large logarithms of the charm transverse momentum are resummed and finite terms depending on m^2/p_T^2 are kept in the hard scattering cross sections. The theoretical results are compared with recent data from the ZEUS collaboration at HERA. On average, we find good agreement.