# Measurement of charm and bottom production from semileptonic hadron decays in $p$$+$$p$ collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV

## TL;DR

This paper reports precise measurements of electrons from charm and bottom hadron decays in proton-proton collisions at 200 GeV, using displaced-vertex analysis, providing a baseline for heavy-ion collision studies.

## Contribution

It introduces a novel displaced-vertex analysis method with the PHENIX silicon-vertex detector to measure heavy-flavor electron production in $p+p$ collisions.

## Key findings

- Electrons from bottom decays are consistent with pQCD calculations.
- Provides a baseline for future A+A collision measurements.
- Improves precision of heavy-flavor production data.

## Abstract

Measurements of the differential production of electrons from open-heavy-flavor hadrons with charm- and bottom-quark content in $p$$+$$p$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=200$ GeV are presented. The measurements proceed through displaced-vertex analyses of electron tracks from the semileptonic decay of charm and bottom hadrons using the PHENIX silicon-vertex detector. The relative contribution of electrons from bottom decays to inclusive heavy-flavor-electron production is found to be consistent with fixed-order-plus-next-to-leading-log perturbative-QCD calculations within experimental and theoretical uncertainties. These new measurements in $p$$+$$p$ collisions provide a precision baseline for comparable forthcoming measurements in A$+$A collisions.