Charm quark mass dependence in a global QCD analysis

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the charm quark mass influences the determination of proton parton distribution functions in a global QCD analysis, confirming consistency with the world average and assessing impacts on collider predictions.

Contribution

It provides a detailed study of the charm quark mass effects in a NNLO global PDF analysis using the S-ACOT-χ scheme, including constraints from experimental data.

Findings

Charm quark mass from data agrees with the world average.

Different methods for constraining $m_c$ are reviewed.

Impact on LHC cross sections is analyzed.

Abstract

We study the effect of the charm quark mass in the CTEQ global analysis of parton distribution functions (PDFs) of the proton. Constraints on the $\bar{\rm MS}$ mass of the charm quark are examined at the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) accuracy in the S-ACOT-$\chi$ heavy-quark factorization scheme. The value of the charm quark mass from the hadronic scattering data in the CT10 NNLO fit, including semiinclusive charm production in DIS at HERA collider, is found to agree with the world average value. Various approaches for constraining $m_{c}$ in the global analysis and impact on LHC cross sections are reviewed.