Exclusive double-diffractive production of open charm in proton-proton and proton-antiproton collisions

TL;DR

This paper calculates the differential cross sections for exclusive double diffractive production of open charm in proton-proton and proton-antiproton collisions, revealing a significant but small contribution to total charm production with distinctive distribution behaviors.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed calculation of EDD open charm production cross sections and differential distributions, highlighting their relative size and kinematic characteristics.

Findings

EDD contributes about 1% of total open charm production

Differential distributions show faster fall-off with transverse momentum and invariant mass

Sizeable cross sections indicate potential for experimental observation

Abstract

We calculate differential cross sections for exclusive double diffractive (EDD) production of open charm in proton-proton and proton-antiproton collisions. Sizeable cross sections are found. The EDD contribution constitutes about 1 % of the total inclusive cross section for open charm production. A few differential distributions are shown and discussed. The EDD contribution falls faster both with transverse momentum of the $c$ quark/antiquark and the $c \bar c$ invariant mass than in the inclusive case.