Measurement of electrons from semileptonic heavy-flavour hadron decays in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}$= 7 TeV

TL;DR

This paper reports the measurement of electrons from semileptonic heavy-flavour hadron decays in proton-proton collisions at 7 TeV, providing data that tests perturbative QCD predictions.

Contribution

First measurement of electron production from heavy-flavour decays at 7 TeV in pp collisions, comparing results with theoretical QCD calculations.

Findings

Data agrees with NLO pQCD predictions within uncertainties

Provides baseline for heavy-flavour studies in high-energy collisions

Extends transverse momentum range of previous measurements

Abstract

The differential production cross section of electrons from semileptonic heavy-flavour hadron decays has been measured at mid-rapidity ($|y| < 0.5$) in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 7$ TeV with ALICE at the LHC. Electrons were measured in the transverse momentum range 0.5 $<p_{\rm T}<$ 8 GeV/$c$. Predictions from a fixed order perturbative QCD calculation with next-to-leading-log resummation agree with the data within the theoretical and experimental uncertainties.