Reference heavy flavour cross sections in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV, using a pQCD-driven sqrt(s)-scaling of ALICE measurements at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

TL;DR

This paper estimates heavy flavour production cross sections at 2.76 TeV in pp collisions by scaling ALICE 7 TeV data using pQCD calculations, providing a reference for future heavy-ion studies.

Contribution

It introduces a pQCD-driven scaling method to derive reference cross sections at 2.76 TeV from 7 TeV data, validated against Tevatron measurements.

Findings

Scaled D meson cross sections match CDF data at 1.96 TeV.

The method provides reliable reference cross sections at 2.76 TeV.

The approach aids in interpreting heavy-ion collision results.

Abstract

We provide a reference in proton-proton collisions at the energy of the Pb-Pb 2010 run at the LHC, sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV, for the pt-differential production cross section of D0, D+, and D*+ mesons in |y| < 0.5, of electrons from heavy flavour decays in |y| < 0.9, and of muons from heavy flavour decays in 2.5 < y < 4. The reference is obtained by applying a pQCD-driven scaling (based on the FONLL calculation) to ALICE preliminary data at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV. In order to validate the procedure, we scale the D meson cross section to sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV and compare to the corresponding measurements from the CDF experiment.