Production of D-mesons in $p$+$p$ and $p$+Pb collisions at LHC energies

TL;DR

This paper compares theoretical models with ALICE experimental data on D-meson production in proton-proton and proton-lead collisions at LHC energies, highlighting model successes and discrepancies.

Contribution

It evaluates multiple theoretical models against experimental data, providing insights into their accuracy and limitations in describing D-meson production at LHC energies.

Findings

HIJING and AMPT match p+p data but under-predict p+Pb data

NLO(MNR) and FONLL models attempt to explain R_pPb data

Models show varying degrees of success in reproducing experimental results

Abstract

We present theoretical model comparison with published ALICE results for D-mesons (D$^0$, D$^+$ and D$^{*+}$) in $p$+$p$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 7 TeV and $p$+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 5.02 TeV. Event generator HIJING, transport calculation of AMPT and calculations from NLO(MNR) and FONLL have been used for this study. We found that HIJING and AMPT model predictions are matching with published D-meson cross-sections in $p$+$p$ collisions, while both under-predict the same in $p$+Pb collisions. Attempts were made to explain the $R_{pPb}$ data using NLO-pQCD(MNR), FONLL and other above mentioned models.