Inclusive photoproduction of bottom quarks for low and medium pT in the general-mass variable-flavour-number scheme

TL;DR

This paper provides next-to-leading-order predictions for bottom quark photoproduction using the general-mass variable-flavor-number scheme, comparing with HERA data and highlighting the scheme's improved agreement.

Contribution

It introduces NLO predictions for b-quark production in photoproduction within the GM-VFNS, incorporating realistic fragmentation functions and comparing with experimental data.

Findings

Good overall agreement between data and predictions.

ZEUS data favor the GM-VFNS approach.

Finite b-quark mass effects are significant in modeling.

Abstract

We present predictions for b-quark production in photoprodcution and compare with experimental data from HERA. Our theoretical predictions are obtained at next-to-leading-order in the general-mass variable-flavor-number scheme, an approach which takes into account the finite mass of the b quarks. We use realistic evolved nonperturbative fragmentation functions obtained from fits to e+e- data. We find in general good agreement of data with both the GM-VFNS and the FFNS calculations, while the more precise ZEUS data seem to prefer the GM-VFNS predictions.