Study of Open Charm Production in p+p Collisions at $\sqrt(s)$ = 200 GeV

TL;DR

This paper reports the first measurement of open charm production cross-section in proton-proton collisions at 200 GeV, providing a baseline for heavy ion collision studies and comparing results with pQCD predictions.

Contribution

It presents the first open charm cross-section measurement at 200 GeV p+p collisions, using two analysis techniques, and compares results with theoretical pQCD models.

Findings

Total open charm cross-section measured as 0.920 mb

Results agree with pQCD predictions within uncertainties

Provides baseline data for heavy ion collision studies

Abstract

The dissertation presents the measurement of electrons from heavy flavor decays in proton + proton collisions at RHIC at collision energy $\sqrt(s) = 200$ GeV. Two independent analysis techniques of signal extraction were performed. This is the first measurement of the Open Charm crossection at this collision energy and it is an important baseline measurement for comparison with nucleus + nucleus collisions. The modification of Open Charm production in heavy ion collisions compared to the presented p+p result can be used to study the final state interaction of the heavy quarks with hot dense matter inside the collisions. The results of the Open Charm measurements are compared to current pQCD predictions both in Leading Order (LO) $O(\alpha_s^2)$ and Next-to-Leading Order (NLO) $O(\alpha_s^3)$. The final result for the total Open Charm crossection is $\sigma_{c\bar{c}}= (0.920 \pm 0.148(stat)\pm 0.524(sys))$ mb.