Charm production and fragmentation fractions at midrapidity in pp collisions at the LHC with ALICE

TL;DR

This paper reports measurements of charm quark production and fragmentation in proton-proton collisions at the LHC, providing insights into QCD processes and heavy-quark hadronization with new total cross section and fragmentation fraction data.

Contribution

It presents the first comprehensive determination of the total charm production cross section and fragmentation fractions in pp collisions at the LHC.

Findings

First measurement of total charm production cross section in pp collisions.

Quantification of charm quark fragmentation fractions into various hadrons.

Provides data to test QCD predictions and models of heavy-quark hadronization.

Abstract

Heavy quarks, such as charm and beauty, possess masses significantly larger than the characteristic energy scale of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), and are thus predominantly produced in hard-scattering processes with large momentum transfer ($Q^{2}$). This makes them effective probes for verifying QCD calculations and investigating heavy-quark hadronization processes across various collision systems. Recent measurements of charm meson and baryon production in proton--proton (pp) collisions at the LHC have enabled, for the first time, a determination of the total charm production cross section, including contributions from all ground-state charm hadrons.Additionally, the fragmentation fractions of charm quarks into hadrons in pp collisions have been quantified.