Abstract
We present predictions for b-quark production in photoproduction and compare with experimental data from HERA. Our theoretical predictions are obtained at next-to-leading-order in the general-mass variable-flavor-number scheme, an approach which takes into account the finite mass of the b quarks. We use realistic evolved nonperturbative fragmentation functions obtained from fits to e+e− data. We find in general good agreement of data with both the GM-VFNS and the FFNS calculations, while the more precise ZEUS data seem to prefer the GM-VFNS predictions.
Highlights
The investigation of heavy-quark production in ep collisions is a useful test of perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) since the heavy quark mass provides a hard scale that allows to perform calculations within perturbation theory
We shall compare with the differential cross section dσ/dpT measured by the ZEUS and the H1 collaborations at HERA
In order to study the influence of the choice of the proton PDF we present results for two other PDFs: CT10 [20] and HERAPDF1.5 (NLO) [21]
Summary
The investigation of heavy-quark (bottom or charm) production in ep collisions is a useful test of perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) since the heavy quark mass provides a hard scale that allows to perform calculations within perturbation theory. In most of the measurements, the cross section was obtained using semi-leptonic decays into muons or electrons. All these measurements have been compared with predictions based on the fixed-flavor-number scheme (FFNS) [1]. In this scheme, the bottom quark is generated in the hard scattering-process and appears only in the final state. Predictions for the photoproduction cross section are calculated at next-to-leading-order (NLO) taking the finite mass of the bottom quark explicitly into account. Reasonable agreement of the data with FFNS predictions has been obtained
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