Charm quark and meson production in association with single-jet at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper investigates charm quark and meson production with an associated jet at the LHC using collinear and $k_T$-factorization methods, predicting distributions and correlations, and comparing different theoretical approaches.

Contribution

It provides new predictions for charm-jet production at the LHC, comparing collinear and $k_T$-factorization approaches with various unintegrated gluon distributions.

Findings

Predicted azimuthal correlations between charm pairs and jets.

Showed relation between $2 o 2$ and $2 o 3$ processes at high transverse momentum.

Compared NLO collinear and $k_T$-factorization approaches with consistent results.

Abstract

We discuss charm quark/antiquark and charmed meson production in association with one extra jet (gluon, quark, antiquark) at the LHC. The calculations are performed both in collinear and $k_T$-factorization approaches. Different unintegrated gluon distribution functions are used in the $k_T$-factorization approach. Several predictions for the LHC are presented. We show distributions in rapidity and transverse momenta of $c$/$\bar c$ (or charmed mesons) and the associated jet as well as some two-dimensional observables. Interesting correlation effects are predicted, \textit{e.g.} in azimuthal angles $\varphi_{c\bar{c}}$ and $\varphi_{c\mathrm{\textit{-jet}}}$. We have also discussed a relation of the $2 \to 2$ and $2 \to 3$ partonic calculations in the region of large transverse momenta of charm quarks/antiquarks as well as the similarity of the next-to-leading order collinear approach and the $k_T$-factorization approach with the KMR unintegrated parton distribution functions. Integrated cross sections for $D^{0}$ + jet production for ATLAS detector acceptance and for different cuts on jet transverse momenta are also presented.