Inclusive B-meson production at small p_T in the general-mass variable-flavor-number scheme

TL;DR

This paper presents a next-to-leading order calculation of inclusive B-meson production in proton-proton and proton-antiproton collisions using the general-mass variable-flavor-number scheme, achieving good agreement with experimental data across a range of transverse momenta.

Contribution

It introduces a method to smoothly transition between schemes by choosing appropriate factorization scales, improving theoretical predictions for B-meson production.

Findings

Numerical results agree well with Tevatron and LHC data.

The scheme provides a consistent description at small and large p_T.

Smooth transition between flavor schemes enhances prediction accuracy.

Abstract

We calculate the cross section for the inclusive production of B mesons in pp and ppbar collisions at next-to-leading order in the general-mass variable-flavor-number scheme and show that a suitable choice of factorization scales leads to a smooth transition to the fixed-flavor-number scheme. Our numerical results are in good agreement with data from the Tevatron and LHC experiments at small and at large transverse momenta.