The impact of the LHCb B±B^{\pm} production cross-section on parton distribution functions and determining the mass of heavy quarks

In this work, the impact of recent measurements of heavy-flavour production in $pp$ collisions on parton distribution functions (PDFs) and their uncertainties is studied. In this regard, the absolute and normalised cross sections of beauty hadron production measured by LHCb at center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and 13 TeV are separately included in the next-to-leading order (NLO) global QCD analysis together with the measurements of the inclusive and heavy-flavour production cross sections at HERA. It is illustrated that the heavy-flavour data of the LHCb experiment impose additional constraints on the PDFs, especially on the gluon distribution at low partonic fractions $x$ of the proton momentum. One of the most important results of the present analysis is the significant reduction of the gluon uncertainties in the region less than $x=10^{-4}$ that can play a crucial rule in many areas of high energy physics investigations.Comment: 36 pages, 8 figures, has been accepted for publication in Nuclear Physics

Majorana Neutrinos and Same-Sign Dilepton Production at LHC and in Rare Meson Decays

We discuss same-sign dilepton production mediated by Majorana neutrinos in high-energy proton-proton collisions pp\ra \ell^+ \ell^{\prime +}X for $\ell,~ \ell^\prime = e,~ \mu,~ \tau$ at the LHC energy $\sqrt{s}=14$ TeV, and in the rare decays of $K$, $D$, $D_s$, and $B$ mesons of the type M^{+}\ra M^{\prime -}\ell ^{+}\ell ^{\prime+}. For the $pp$ reaction, assuming one heavy Majorana neutrino of mass $m_N$, we present discovery limits in the $(m_{N},|U_{\ell N}U_{\ell^\prime N}|)$ plane where $U_{\ell N}$ are the mixing parameters. Taking into account the present limits from low energy experiments, we show that at LHC for the nominal luminosity L=100 fb$^{-1}$ there is no room for observable same-sign dilepton signals. However, increasing the integrated luminosity by a factor 30, one will have sensitivity to heavy Majorana neutrinos up to a mass $m_N\leq 1.5$ TeV only in the dilepton channels $\mu\mu$ and $\mu \tau$, but other dilepton states will not be detectable due to the already existing strong constraints. We work out a large number of rare meson decays, both for the light and heavy Majorana neutrino scenarios, and argue that the present experimental bounds on the branching ratios are too weak to set reasonable limits on the effective Majorana masses.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures (requires graphicx), a coefficient in Eq. (4) corrected leading to drastic reduction in the Majorana-induced same-sign dilepton cross-section at LHC; revised Figs. 2 and 3; references adde

Rare BB-Decays and Heavy to Light Semileptonic Transitions in the Isgur and Wise Limit

From the experimental branching ratios for $B^- --> \rho^0 l^-\bar\nu_l$ and D^+ --> {\overl K}^{*0}({\overl K}^0) e^+ \nu_e one finds, in the Heavy Quark Limit of $HQET$, $|V_{bu}|=(8.1\pm 1.7) x 10^{-3}$, larger but consistent with the actual quoted range $(2 - 7) x 10^{-3}$. In the same framework one predicts for $R(B --> K^*\gamma)=( 2 \pm 2 ) 10^{-2}$.Comment: 9 pages, 1 Figure avalaible on request from [email protected]