Heavy quark production at LHC in the color dipole formalism

TL;DR

This paper estimates heavy quark production at LHC energies using the color dipole formalism and the running coupling BK equation, accounting for nuclear effects in cross sections and rapidity distributions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel application of the color dipole formalism with the running coupling BK equation to heavy quark production at LHC energies, including nuclear effects.

Findings

Predicted total cross sections for heavy quark production.

Rapidity distributions for proton-proton and proton-nucleus collisions.

Quantified nuclear effects on heavy quark yields.

Abstract

In this work we estimate the heavy quark production in proton-proton and proton-nucleus collisions at LHC energies using the color dipole formalism and the solution of the running coupling Balitsky-Kovchegov equation. Nuclear effects are considered in the computation of the total cross sections and rapidity distributions for scattering on protons and nuclei.