B-hadron hadro-production in NNLO QCD: application to LHC $t\bar{t}$ events with leptonic decays

TL;DR

This paper presents the first NNLO QCD calculations for identified heavy hadron production at hadron colliders, providing precise predictions for $B$ hadrons in $tar t$ events at the LHC to improve top quark mass measurements.

Contribution

It introduces a novel NNLO QCD computational framework for heavy hadron production and applies it to $tar t$ events, enabling more accurate phenomenological predictions.

Findings

NNLO QCD predictions for $B$ hadrons in $tar t$ events at the LHC.

Framework allows calculation of distributions involving heavy hadrons, jets, and non-QCD particles.

Potential to extract heavy flavor fragmentation functions from LHC data.

Abstract

We calculate, for the first time, the NNLO QCD corrections to identified heavy hadron production at hadron colliders. The calculation is based on a flexible numeric framework which allows the calculation of any distribution of a single identified heavy hadron plus jets and non-QCD particles. As a first application we provide NNLO QCD predictions for several differential distributions of $B$ hadrons in $t\bar t$ events at the LHC. Among others, these predictions are needed for the precise determination of the top quark mass. The extension of our results to other processes, like open or associated $B$ and charm production is straightforward. We also explore the prospects for extracting heavy flavor fragmentation functions from LHC data.