Prompt (DI) leptons associated with [formula omitted] collider jets

Abstract

The large p T jet cross sections as well as the charm (in fact D ∗) content of the jets have been measured in p p interactions with √ s=540 GeV. It is then an (almost) straightforward calculation to predict the rates and properties of events with prompt leptons and multileptons resulting from the leptonic decay of the jets' heavy-quark fragments. We find a source of heavy quarks and prompt leptons produced in association with jets which could totally dominate yields conventionally computed from perturbative QCD and which, more importantly, leads to totally different event characteristics. E.g., events where both jets contain a heavy-quark fragment ( c c + c c , c c + b b or b b + b b ) are the origin of opposite- and same-sign lepton pairs with equal probability. The dileptons are accompanied by four strange particles and occasionally conceal their jet origin by trigger bias. They form a possible source of the “anomalous” dilepton events recently observed by the UA1 experiment.