Abstract
The cross section of bottom quark-antiquark ($b\bar{b}$) production in $p$+$p$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=510$ GeV is measured with the PHENIX detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The results are based on the yield of high mass, like-sign muon pairs measured within the PHENIX muon arm acceptance ($1.2<|y|<2.2$). The $b\bar{b}$ signal is extracted from like-sign dimuons by utilizing the unique properties of neutral $B$ meson oscillation. We report a differential cross section of $d\sigma_{b\bar{b}\rightarrow \mu^\pm\mu^\pm}/dy = 0.16 \pm 0.01~(\mbox{stat}) \pm 0.02~(\mbox{syst}) \pm 0.02~(\mbox{global})$ nb for like-sign muons in the rapidity and $p_T$ ranges $1.2<|y|<2.2$ and $p_T>1$ GeV/$c$, and dimuon mass of 5--10 GeV/$c^2$. The extrapolated total cross section at this energy for $b\bar{b}$ production is $13.1 \pm 0.6~(\mbox{stat}) \pm 1.5~(\mbox{syst}) \pm 2.7~(\mbox{global})~\mu$b. The total cross section is compared to a perturbative quantum chromodynamics calculation and is consistent within uncertainties. The azimuthal opening angle between muon pairs from $b\bar{b}$ decays and their $p_T$ distributions are compared to distributions generated using {\sc ps pythia 6}, which includes next-to-leading order processes. The azimuthal correlations and pair $p_T$ distribution are not very well described by {\sc pythia} calculations, but are still consistent within uncertainties. Flavor creation and flavor excitation subprocesses are favored over gluon splitting.
Highlights
The bottom-quark production in hadron-hadron collisions is an important test of perturbative quantum chromodynamics calculations
Because of its large mass, mb ≫ ΛQCD, the b-quark production cross section can be reliably calculated by including next-to-leading order (NLO) processes, especially at high center of mass energies [1]
The during dataset for the 2013 p this þp arunnalyast ispiffisffis 1⁄4co5l1le0ctGedeVb.yEPvHenEtNs, IiXn coincidence with the minimum bias trigger (MB) trigger, containing a muon pair within the acceptance of the spectrometer are selected by the level-1 dimuon trigger (MuIDLL1-2D) requiring that at least two tracks penetrate through the muon identifier (MuID) to its last two layers
Summary
The bottom-quark production in hadron-hadron collisions is an important test of perturbative quantum chromodynamics (pQCD) calculations. The measurement of the bbproduction cross section over a wide range of colliding energies in hadron-hadron collisions provides a meaningful test of pQCD theory calculations and a baseline measurement for studying modifications of heavy quark production in heavy ion collisions. Like-sign dimuons have previously been used to investigate the phenomenon of neutral B meson oscillations in eþe− collisions by the CLEO Collaboration [19], the ARGUS Collaboration [20], the ALEPH Collaboration [21], and in p þ pcollisions by the UA1 Collaboration [22]. We present measurements of bbproduction cross section through the like-sign dimuon decays and the azimuthal opening angle between the mpuoffiffin pair and their pT distributions in p þ p collisions at s 1⁄4 510 GeV at forward (1.2 < y < 2.2) and backward (−2.2 < y < −1.2) rapidities.
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