Charmed mesons and leptons from semileptonic decays at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper models charmed meson and lepton production at the LHC using $k_{ot}$-factorization, compares theoretical predictions with experimental data, and discusses uncertainties in the calculations.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive $k_{ot}$-factorization approach with specific gluon distributions and decay functions, providing detailed predictions and comparisons with LHC data.

Findings

Good agreement with ALICE and CMS transverse momentum distributions.

Accurate modeling of $D ar D$ pair correlations at LHCb.

Quantified theoretical uncertainties in cross section calculations.

Abstract

We discuss production of charmed mesons as well as electrons/muons from semileptonic decays of charm and bottom mesons in proton-proton collisions at the LHC. The cross section for inclusive production of $c \bar c$ and $b \bar b$ pairs is calculated in the framework of the $k_{\perp}$-factorization approach. Here, the KMR and Jung CCFM unintegrated gluon distribution functions are used. Theoretical uncertainties of the model related to the choice of renormalization and factorization scales as well as due to the quark mass are also discussed. The hadronization of charm and bottom quarks is included within the fragmentation functions technique. Inclusive differential distributions in transverse momentum of charmed mesons are presented and compared to recent results of the ALICE collaboration. Furthermore, we also consider production of different $D \bar D$ pairs in unique kinematics of forward rapidities of the LHCb experiment. Kinematical correlations in azimuthal angle $\varphi_{D\bar D}$ and invariant mass $M_{D \bar D}$ distributions are presented and compared to LHCb data. Furthermore, the semileptonic decays of charm and bottom mesons are done with the help of decay functions found by fitting recent semileptonic data obtained by the CLEO and BABAR collaborations. Inclusive differential distributions in transverse momentum of leptons for several kinematical regions are presented and compared to recent results of the ALICE and CMS collaborations.