Aspects of heavy quark production in polarized proton-proton collisions

M. Karliner*, R. W. Robinett

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

We examine the spin-dependence of b-quark production at large pT in polarized pp collisions. The leading-order (LO) 2 → 2 subprocesses, g + g → Q + Q and q + q → Q + Q have a large 'analyzing power', with the average spin-spin asymmetry approaching -100% at large pT. Next-to-leading order (NLO) 2 → 3 processes have a large and positive asymmetry at large pT, leading to strong cancellations with the LO predictions. The results suggest that b-quark production might constitute an interesting test of the spin-dependence of NLO QCD but they also point up the need for the complete O(α3S spin-dependent corrections for extraction of the polarized gluon distribution.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)209-216
Number of pages8
JournalPhysics Letters B
Volume324
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 31 Mar 1994

Funding

FundersFunder number
National Science FoundationPHY-9001744, 90-00342
Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences9001744
United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation
Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Aspects of heavy quark production in polarized proton-proton collisions'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this