J/ ψ production at the LHC

Abstract

We firstly examine hadroproduction of prompt J/psi's at the Fermilab Tevatron in a Monte Carlo Framework by means of the event generator PYTHIA 5.7 in which those colour-octet matrix elements processes relevant for charmonium production have been implemented accordingly. We find that colour-octet matrix elements presented in literature from p-pbar collider data are systematically overestimated due to overlooking of the effective primordial transverse momentum of partons (i.e. including higher-order QCD effects). We estimate the size of these effects using different parton distribution functions. Finally, after normalization to Tevatron data, we extrapolate up to LHC energies making a prediction on the expected pt differential cross-section for charmonium.