Measurement of beauty production in deep inelastic scattering at HERA

TL;DR

This paper measures the beauty quark production cross section in deep inelastic scattering at HERA, comparing results with QCD predictions and finding some deviations at specific kinematic regions.

Contribution

First measurement of beauty production cross section in deep inelastic scattering with detailed comparison to NLO QCD predictions.

Findings

Measured total cross section: 40.9 pb with uncertainties.

NLO QCD predictions are about 2.5 standard deviations below data overall.

Discrepancies observed at low Q^2, Bjorken x, and high jet transverse energy.

Abstract

The beauty production cross section for deep inelastic scattering events with at least one hard jet in the Breit frame together with a muon has been measured, for photon virtualities Q^2 > 2 GeV^2, with the ZEUS detector at HERA using integrated luminosity of 72 pb^-1. The total visible cross section is sigma_b-bbar (ep -> e jet mu X) = 40.9 +- 5.7 (stat.) +6.0 -4.4 (syst.) pb. The next-to-leading order QCD prediction lies about 2.5 standard deviations below the data. The differential cross sections are in general consistent with the NLO QCD predictions; however at low values of Q^2, Bjorken x, and muon transverse momentum, and high values of jet transverse energy and muon pseudorapidity, the prediction is about two standard deviations below the data.