Production of massless charm jets in pp collisions at next-to-leading order of QCD

We present predictions for the inclusive production of charm jets in proton-proton collisions at 7 TeV. Several CTEQ parton distribution functions (PDFs) of the CTEQ6.6M type are employed, where two of the CTEQ6.6 PDFs have intrinsic charm. At large enough jet transverse momentum and large jet rapidity, the intrinsic charm content can be tested.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

TEVATRON-HERA Colour-Octet Charmonium Anomaly Versus Higher-Order QCD Effects

Approximately taking into account the higher-order effects due to multiple-gluon initial-state radiation, we extract from the latest Tevatron data of prompt J/psi hadroproduction the leading colour-octet matrix elements within the nonrelativistic-QCD (NRQCD) factorization formalism proposed by Bodwin, Braaten, and Lepage. We find that the matrix elements which describe the formation of J/psi mesons from colour-octet cc-bar pairs in the angular-momentum states ^{2S+1}L_J = ^1S_0 and ^3P_J, with J = 0,1,2, which are responsible for the excess of the predicted cross section of inelastic J/psi photoproduction over the existing HERA data at high values of the inelasticity variable z, are significantly reduced. We conclude that it is premature to proclaim a discrepancy between the Tevatron and HERA measurements of inclusive J/psi production in the NRQCD framework. We also consider J/psi mesons originating from the radiative feed down of promptly produced chi_{cJ} mesons.Comment: 28 pages (Latex), 12 figures (Postscript

Anatomy of the pQCD Approach to the Baryonic Decays Λb→pπ,pK\Lambda_b \to p\pi, p K

We calculate the CP-averaged branching ratios and CP-violating asymmetries for the two-body charmless hadronic decays $\Lambda_b \to p \pi, pK$ in the perturbative QCD (pQCD) approach to lowest order in $\alpha_s$. The baryon distribution amplitudes involved in the factorization formulae are considered to the leading twist accuracy and the distribution amplitudes of the proton are expanded to the next-to-leading conformal spin (i.e., "P" -waves), the moments of which are determined from QCD sum rules. Our work shows that the contributions from the factorizable diagrams in $\Lambda_b \to p \pi, pK$ decays are much smaller compared to the non-factorizable diagrams in the conventional pQCD approach. We argue that this reflects the estimates of the $\Lambda_b \to p$ transition form factors in the $k_T$ factorization approach, which are found typically an order of magnitude smaller than those estimated in the light-cone sum rules and in the non-relativistic quark model. As an alternative, we adopt a hybrid pQCD approach, in which we compute the factorizable contributions with the $\Lambda_b \to p$ form factors taken from the light cone QCD sum rules. The non-factorizable diagrams are evaluated utilizing the conventional pQCD formalism which is free from the endpoint singularities. The predictions worked out here are confronted with the recently available data from the CDF collaboration on the branching ratios and the direct CP asymmetries for the decays $\Lambda_b \to p \pi$, and $\Lambda_b \to p K$. The asymmetry parameter $\alpha$ relevant for the anisotropic angular distribution of the emitted proton in the polarized $\Lambda_b$ baryon decays is also calculated for the two decay modes.Comment: 47 pages, 9 figures, 8 tables; typos and references corrected; version corresponds to the one accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Evidence for Factorization Breaking in Diffractive Low-Q^2 Dijet Production

We calculate diffractive dijet production in deep-inelastic scattering at next-to-leading order of perturbative QCD, including contributions from direct and resolved photons, and compare our predictions to preliminary data from the H1 collaboration at HERA. In contrast to recent experimental claims, evidence for factorization breaking is found only for resolved, and not direct, photon contributions. No evidence is found for large normalization uncertainties in diffractive parton densities. The results confirm theoretical expectations for the (non-)cancellation of soft singularities in diffractive scattering as well as previous results for (almost) real photoproduction.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Open charm hadroproduction and the charm content of the proton

We advocate charmed-hadron inclusive hadroproduction as a laboratory to probe intrinsic charm (IC) inside the colliding hadrons. Working at next-to-leading order in the general-mass variable-flavor-number scheme endowed with non-perturbative fragmentation functions recently extracted from a global fit to e^+e^- annihilation data from KEKB, CESR, and LEP1, we first assess the sensitivity of Tevatron data of D^0, D^+, and D^{*+} inclusive production to the IC parameterizations provided by Pumplin et al. We then argue that similar data from pp collisions at RHIC would have the potential to discriminate between different IC models provided they reach out to sufficiently large values of transverse momentum.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures; discussion of large-p_T range at the Tevatron and high-energy mode of RHIC included, 2 figures added; accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Factorization scheme and scale dependence in diffractive dijet production at low Q^2

We calculate diffractive dijet production in deep-inelastic scattering at next-to-leading order of perturbative QCD, including contributions from direct and resolved photons, and compare our predictions to preliminary data from the H1 collaboration at HERA. We study how the cross section depends on the factorization scheme and scale M_\gamma at the virtual photon vertex for the occurrence of factorization breaking. The strong M_\gamma-dependence, which is present when only the resolved cross section is suppressed, is tamed by introducing the suppression also into the initial-state NLO correction of the direct part.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figure

Non-Leptonic Decays of B Mesons and Strong Coupling Constants

Non-leptonic decays of B mesons into two mesons or meson resonances are studied on the basis of two versions of simple pole-dominance models involving scalar, vector, pseudoscalar and axial-vector poles. The results are compared with those obtained from the usual factorization model and used to obtain information on strong coupling constants between B meson and one light or one charmed meson, respectively. These coupling constants are compared to results from various QCD sum rule calculations.Comment: Latex file 35 pages, including 3 figure

Review of factorization breaking in diffractive photoproduction of dijets

After the final analyses of the H1 and ZEUS collaborations for the diffractive photoproduction of dijets have appeared, we have recalculated these cross sections in next-to-leading order (NLO) of perturbative QCD to see whether they can be interpreted consistently. The results of these calculations are compared to the data of both collaborations. We find that at NLO the cross sections disagree with the data, showing that factorization breaking occurs at this order. If direct and resolved contributions are both suppressed by the same amount, the global suppression factor depends on the transverse-energy cut and is 0.42 for the H1 and 0.71 for the ZEUS analysis. However, by suppressing only the resolved contribution by a factor of approximately three, also reasonably good agreement with all the data is found. The size of the factorization breaking effects for resolved photons agrees with absorptive-model predictions.Comment: 22 pages, 2 tables, 8 figures. Invited brief review for Modern Physics Letters