Inclusive D^{+-} Production in p p-bar Collisions with Massive Charm Quarks.pdf

a r X i v : h e p - p h / 0 4 1 0 2 8 9 v 1 2 1 O c t 2 0 0 4 DESY 04–172 ISSN 0418–9833 MZ–TH/04–07 hep–ph/0410289 October 2004 Inclusive D?± Production in pp? Collisions with Massive Charm Quarks B.A. Kniehl, G. Kramer, I. Schienbein II. Institut fu?r Theoretische Physik, Universita?t Hamburg, Luruper Chaussee 149, 22761 Hamburg, Germany H. Spiesberger Institut fu?r Physik, Johannes-Gutenberg-Universita?t, Staudinger Weg 7, 55099 Mainz, Germany Abstract We calculate the next-to-leading order cross section for the inclusive production of D?± mesons in pp? collisions as a function of the transverse momentum and the rapidity in two approaches using massive or massless charm quarks. For the inclusive cross section, we derive the massless limit from the massive theory. We find that this limit differs from the genuine massless version with MS factorization by finite corrections. By adjusting subtraction terms, we establish a massive theory with MS subtraction which approaches the massless theory with increasing transverse momentum. With these results and including the contributions due to the charm and anti-charm content of the proton and anti-proton, we calculate the inclusive D?± cross section in pp? collisions using realistic evolved non-perturbative fragmentation functions and compare with recent data from the CDF Collaboration at the Fermilab Tevatron at center-of-mass energy √ S = 1.96 TeV. We find reasonable, though not perfect, agreement with the measured cross sections. PACS numbers: 12.38.Bx, 12.39.St, 13.85.Ni, 14.40.Lb 1 I. INTRODUCTION Recently, there has been quite some interest in the study of charm production in proton– anti-proton collisions at high energies, both experimentally and theoretically. The CDF Collaboration at the Fermilab Tevatron presented results for prompt charm meson produc- tion cross sections at center-of-mass energy √ S = 1.96 TeV. The differential cross section dσ/dpT was measured as a function of transverse momentum (pT ) in t