The role of the underlying event in the charm-baryon enhancement observed in pp collisions at LHC energies

TL;DR

This paper investigates the increased production of charm baryons in proton-proton collisions at LHC energies, attributing it mainly to the underlying event rather than jet activity, using PYTHIA 8 simulations.

Contribution

It introduces an analysis linking charm-baryon enhancement to underlying event activity via enhanced color reconnection in PYTHIA 8.

Findings

Charm-baryon production is linked to underlying event activity.

Enhanced color reconnection explains the baryon enhancement.

Jet activity is not the primary source of the enhancement.

Abstract

We study the enhanced production of $\Lambda_c$ charmed baryons relative to that of charmed $D^0$ mesons in proton-proton collisions at LHC energies. We simulated collision events with the enhanced color-reconnection model in PYTHIA 8 MC generator and propose measurements based on the comparative use of different event-activity classifiers to identify the source of the charmed-baryon enhancement. We demonstrate that in this enhanced color-reconnection scenario the excess production is primarily linked to the underlying event and not to the production of high-momentum jets.