Measurement of inclusive electrons from open heavy-flavor hadron decays in $p$+$p$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 200$ GeV with the STAR detector

TL;DR

This paper presents a precise measurement of inclusive electrons from open heavy-flavor hadron decays in proton-proton collisions at 200 GeV, offering valuable data to test QCD predictions and serve as a reference for heavy-ion collision studies.

Contribution

It provides an improved, high-precision measurement of electron production from heavy-flavor decays at high transverse momentum in $p$+$p$ collisions, enhancing constraints on theoretical models.

Findings

Enhanced precision above 6 GeV/$c$ compared to previous data

Provides a high-quality reference for heavy-ion collision analyses

Constrains perturbative QCD calculations

Abstract

We report a new measurement of the production cross section for inclusive electrons from open heavy-flavor hadron decays as a function of transverse momentum ($p_{\rm T}$) at mid-rapidity ($|y|<$ 0.7) in $p$+$p$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 200$ GeV. The result is presented for 2.5 $<p_{\rm T}<$ 10 GeV/$c$ with an improved precision above 6 GeV/$c$ with respect to the previous measurements, providing more constraints on perturbative QCD calculations. Moreover, this measurement also provides a high-precision reference for measurements of nuclear modification factors for inclusive electrons from open-charm and -bottom hadron decays in heavy-ion collisions.