Next-to-Leading Order QCD Corrections to Heavy Quark Correlations in Longitudinally Polarized Hadron-Hadron Collisions

TL;DR

This paper provides a detailed NLO QCD analysis of heavy quark correlations in polarized proton collisions at RHIC, highlighting the importance of higher-order corrections and their impact on gluon polarization measurements.

Contribution

It introduces a flexible Monte Carlo framework for NLO calculations of heavy flavor observables, including decay and experimental effects, enhancing the precision of spin asymmetry predictions.

Findings

NLO corrections significantly affect cross sections and asymmetries.

Electron-muon and muon-muon correlations are promising for gluon polarization studies.

Theoretical uncertainties are quantified through scale and parameter variations.

Abstract

We present a comprehensive phenomenological study of heavy flavor distributions and correlations in longitudinally polarized proton-proton collisions at BNL-RHIC. All results are obtained with a flexible parton-level Monte Carlo program at next-to-leading order accuracy and include the fragmentation into heavy mesons, their subsequent semi-leptonic decays, and experimental cuts. Next-to-leading order QCD corrections are found to be significant for both cross sections and double-spin asymmetries. The sensitivity of heavy flavor measurements at BNL-RHIC to the gluon polarization of the nucleon is assessed. Electron-muon and muon-muon correlations turn out to be the most promising observables. Theoretical uncertainties are estimated by varying renormalization and factorization scales, heavy quark masses, and fragmentation parameters.