# Heavy flavor production in high-energy $pp$ collisions: color dipole description

## TL;DR

This paper uses the color dipole framework to analyze heavy flavor production in high-energy proton-proton collisions at the LHC, comparing theoretical predictions with experimental data for $b$-jets, $D$, and $B$ mesons.

## Contribution

It provides a comprehensive dipole model analysis of heavy flavor production, including the impact of primordial gluon transverse momentum and comparison with recent LHC data.

## Key findings

- Dipole model results agree with ATLAS, CMS, and LHCb data.
- Primordial gluon transverse momentum significantly influences low-$p_T$ meson spectra.
- Theoretical uncertainties are mainly due to the modeling of the dipole cross section.

## Abstract

We present a detailed study of open heavy flavor production in high-energy $pp$ collisions at the LHC in the color dipole framework. The transverse momentum distributions of produced $b$-jets, accounting for the jet energy loss, as well as produced open charm $D$ and bottom $B$ mesons in distinct rapidity intervals relevant for LHC measurements are computed. The dipole model results for the differential $b$-jet production cross section are compared to the recent ATLAS and CMS data while the results for $D$ and $B$ mesons production cross sections -- to the corresponding LHCb data. Several models for the phenomenological dipole cross section have been employed to estimate theoretical uncertainties of the dipole model predictions. We demonstrate that the primordial transverse momentum distribution of the projectile gluon significantly affects the meson spectra at low transverse momenta and contributes to the largest uncertainty of the dipole model predictions.