Measurement of Charm and Beauty Photoproduction at HERA using D* mu Correlations

TL;DR

This paper reports measurements of charm and beauty quark production at HERA using D* meson and muon correlations, comparing results with QCD predictions and highlighting agreement for charm but higher observed beauty cross sections.

Contribution

It introduces a method to distinguish charm and beauty contributions in photoproduction using D* muon correlations at HERA.

Findings

Charm cross section agrees with QCD predictions.

Beauty cross section is higher than theoretical estimates.

Method effectively separates charm and beauty signals.

Abstract

A measurement of charm and beauty photoproduction at the electron proton collider HERA is presented based on the simultaneous detection of a D*^{\pm} meson and a muon. The correlation between the D* meson and the muon serves to separate the charm and beauty contributions and the analysis provides comparable sensitivity to both. The total and differential experimental cross sections are compared to LO and NLO QCD calculations. The measured charm cross section is in good agreement with QCD predictions including higher order effects while the beauty cross section is higher.