Next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the production of $B_c$ and $B_c^*$ through $W^+$-boson decays

TL;DR

This paper calculates the next-to-leading order QCD corrections to $W^+$-boson decays producing $B_c$ and $B_c^*$ mesons, providing detailed decay widths and event estimates for the LHC, enhancing precision in heavy meson production predictions.

Contribution

It presents the first NLO QCD correction calculations for $W^+$ decays into $B_c$ and $B_c^*$ mesons using both fixed-order and fragmentation methods.

Findings

NLO corrections are significant for these decay channels.

Approximately 70,300 $B_c$ and 51,000 $B_c^*$ events expected per year at LHC.

Differential decay widths are provided for detailed analysis.

Abstract

In this paper, we calculate the total decay widths for the $W^+$-boson decays, $W^+ \to B_c+b+\bar{s}+X$ and $W^+ \to B^*_c+b+\bar{s}+X$, up to next-to-leading order (NLO) accuracy within the framework of the nonrelativistic QCD theory. Both the fixed-order and the fragmentation approaches are adopted to do the calculation. Differential decay widths $d\Gamma/dz$ and $d\Gamma/ds_1$ are also given. We find that the NLO corrections are significant in those two $W^+$ decay channels. Our numerical results show that at the LHC, there are about $7.03\times 10^4$ $B_c$-meson events and $5.10\times 10^4$ $B^*_c$-meson events to be produced via the $W^+$-boson decays per operation year.