Measurement of open beauty production at HERA in the D* muon final state

TL;DR

This paper reports a measurement of beauty quark production at HERA using D* mesons and muons, achieving closer-to-threshold results and comparing the cross sections with QCD predictions.

Contribution

First measurement of open beauty production at HERA near the production threshold using combined D* and muon detection.

Findings

Cross sections slightly higher than NLO QCD predictions

Results compatible with previous measurements

Measurement closer to the production threshold

Abstract

The production of beauty quarks with a D*+- and a muon in the final state has been measured with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 114 pb-1. Low transverse-momentum thresholds for the muon and D* meson allow a measurement of beauty production closer to the production threshold than previous measurements. The beauty signal was extracted using the charge correlations and angular distributions of the muon with respect to the D* meson. Cross sections for photoproduction and deep inelastic scattering are somewhat higher than, but compatible with, next-to-leading-order QCD predictions, and compatible with other measurements.