Prompt photon and associated heavy quark production at hadron colliders with kt-factorization

TL;DR

This paper investigates prompt photon production associated with heavy quarks at high energies using the kt-factorization approach, providing theoretical predictions and comparisons with experimental data from Tevatron and LHC energies.

Contribution

It applies the kt-factorization framework with off-shell amplitudes to study photon-heavy quark production, including angular correlations and uncertainty analysis, extending previous work to LHC energies.

Findings

Good agreement with Tevatron data

Predictions for LHC energies provided

Uncertainty analysis highlights theoretical limitations

Abstract

In the framework of the kt-factorization approach, the production of prompt photons in association with a heavy (charm or beauty) quarks at high energies is studied. The consideration is based on the O(\alpha \alpha_s^2) off-shell amplitudes of gluon-gluon fusion and quark-(anti)quark interaction subprocesses. The unintegrated parton densities in a proton are determined using the Kimber-Martin-Ryskin prescription. The analysis covers the total and differential cross sections and extends to specific angular correlations between the produced prompt photons and muons originating from the semileptonic decays of associated heavy quarks. Theoretical uncertainties of our evaluations are studied and comparison with the results of standard NLO pQCD calculations is performed. Our numerical predictions are compared with the recent experimental data taken by the D0 and CDF collaborations at the Tevatron. Finally, we extend our results to LHC energies.