Inclusive b and b anti-b production with quasi-multi-Regge kinematics at the Tevatron

We consider b-jet hadroproduction in the quasi-multi-Regge-kinematics approach based on the hypothesis of gluon and quark Reggeization in t-channel exchanges at high energies. The preliminary data on inclusive b-jet and b anti-b-dijet production taken by the CDF Collaboration at the Fermilab Tevatron are well described without adjusting parameters. We find the main contribution to inclusive b-jet production to be the scattering of a Reggeized gluon and a Reggeized b-quark to a b quark, which is described by the effective Reggeon-Reggeon-quark vertex. The main contribution to b anti-b-pair production arises from the scattering of two Reggeized gluons to a b anti-b pair, which is described by the effective Reggeon-Reggeon-quark-quark vertex. Our anaysis is based on the Kimber-Martin-Ryskin prescription for unintegrated gluon and quark distribution functions using as input the Martin-Roberts-Stirling-Thorne collinear parton distribution functions of the proton.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures; formulas for effective vertices included, discussion of errors somewhat expanded; accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Dependence of Electroweak Parameters on the Definition of the Top-Quark Mass

The QCD corrections to electroweak parameters depend on the renormalization scheme and scales used to define the top-quark mass. We analyze these dependences for the W-boson mass predicted via Delta r to O(alpha alpha_s) and O(alpha alpha_s^2) in the on-shell and MS-bar schemes. These variations provide us with a hint on the magnitude of the unknown higher-order QCD effects and contribute to the theoretical error of the prediction.Comment: 27 pages (Latex), 6 figures (uuencoded compressed tarred Postscript). Extended and updated version, which incorporates the recently calculated next-to-leading-order QCD corrections to Delta rho and Delta

D-meson production in the GM-VFN scheme

We study the inclusive hadrodroduction of D^0, D^+, D^{*+}, and D_s^+ mesons at next-to-leading order in the parton model of quantum chromodynamics endowed with universal non-perturbative fragmentation functions (FFs) fitted to e^+e^- annihilation data from CERN LEP1. Working in the general-mass variable-flavor-number scheme, we resum the large logarithms through the evolution of the FFs and, at the same time, retain the full dependence on the charm-quark mass without additional theoretical assumptions. In this way, the cross section distributions in transverse momentum recently measured by the CDF Collaboration in run II at the Fermilab Tevatron are described within errors.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to appear in the Proceedings of the XIV International Workshop on Deep Inelastic Scattering (DIS 2006), 20-24 April 2006, Tsukuba City, Japa

Virtual Top-Quark Effects on the H->bb-bar Decay at Next-to-Leading Order in QCD

By means of a heavy-top-quark effective Lagrangian, we calculate the three-loop corrections of O(alpha_s^2 G_F M_t^2) to the H->bb-bar partial decay width of the standard-model Higgs boson with intermediate mass M_H<<2M_t. We take advantage of a soft-Higgs theorem to construct the relevant coefficient functions. We present our result both in the MS-bar and on-shell schemes of mass renormalization. The MS-bar formulation turns out to be favourable with regard to the convergence behaviour. We also test a recent idea concerning the naive non-abelianization of QCD.Comment: 8 pages (Latex), 5 figures (Postscript

HYPERgeometric functions DIfferential REduction: MATHEMATICA based packages for differential reduction of generalized hypergeometric functions: Horn hypergeometric functions of two variables

HYPERDIRE is a project devoted to the creation of a set of Mathematica-based programs for the differential reduction of hypergeometric functions. The current version allows for manipulations involving the full set of Horn-type hypergeometric functions of two variables, including 30 functions.Comment: minor corrections, publushed versio

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.

Quark-Loop Amplitudes for W^+- H^-+ Associated Hadroproduction

In this addendum to our paper entitled "W^+- H^-+ Associated Production at the Large Hadron Collider" [Phys. Rev. D 59, 015009 (1999)], we list analytic results for the helicity amplitudes of the partonic subprocess gg -> W^-H^+ induced by virtual quarks.Comment: 6 pages (Latex