Electroproduction of $D$- and $B$-mesons in high-multiplicity $ep$ collisions

TL;DR

This paper predicts how the production of $D$- and $B$-mesons varies with event multiplicity in future high-energy electron-proton colliders, highlighting the potential for multipomeron effects to be observed at certain facilities.

Contribution

It provides detailed theoretical predictions for heavy meson production cross-sections and explores the sensitivity of these processes to multipomeron contributions across different collider energies.

Findings

Multipomeron contributions are small at EIC energies.

Multipomeron effects could be significant at LHeC and FCC-he.

Predictions aid future experimental investigations of heavy meson production.

Abstract

In this paper we study the electroproduction of open heavy flavor $D$- and $B$-mesons in the kinematics of future $ep$ colliders, such as the Electron Ion Collider (EIC), the Large Hadron electron Collider (LHeC) and the Future Circular Collider (FCC-he). We study in detail the dependence of the cross-sections on multiplicity of co-produced hadrons, in view of its possible sensitivity to contributions from multipomeron contributions, and discuss different observables which might be used for its study. According to our theoretical expectations, in $ep$ collisions the multipomeron contributions are small in the EIC kinematics, although they might be sizable at LHeC and FCC-he. We also provide theoretical predictions for the production cross-sections of heavy mesons in the kinematics of all the above-mentioned $ep$ colliders.