Hadronic production of $\Xi_{bc}$ with the intrinsic heavy-quark content at a fixed-target experiment at the LHC

TL;DR

This study predicts the production rates of the $\\Xi_{bc}$ baryon at a fixed-target LHC experiment, highlighting the importance of intrinsic heavy-quark components and dominant production mechanisms.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of $\\Xi_{bc}$ production considering both extrinsic and intrinsic heavy-quark components, emphasizing the significance of the $(g+b)$ mechanism.

Findings

Approximately 3.40×10^5 $\\Xi_{bc}$ events per year at After@LHC.

The $(g+b)$ mechanism is the dominant production process.

Intrinsic heavy quarks significantly influence production rates.

Abstract

In this paper, we make a detailed study on the hadronic production of the $\Xi_{bc}$ baryon at a fixed target experiment at the LHC (After@LHC). In estimating the production cross sections, the $(g+g)$, $(g+c)$ and $(g+b)$ production mechanisms are considered. For the initial heavy quarks, in addition to the extrinsic component, we also consider the intrinsic component. It is found that the $(g+c)$ and $(g+b)$ production mechanisms give sizable contributions to the $\Xi_{bc}$ production, and the $(g+b)$ mechanism dominates the production. The results show that there are about $3.40\times10^5$ $\Xi_{bc}$ events can be produced per year at After@LHC if the integrated luminosity of After@LHC can be up to $2\,{\rm fb}^{-1}$ per year. Moreover, the intrinsic heavy quarks can have significant impact on the production, which inversely makes the intrinsic component be possibly tested at the After@LHC.