Next-to-leading order QCD corrections to heavy quark correlations in longitudinally polarized hadron-hadron collisions
- Institut fuer Theoretische Physik, Universitaet Regensburg, 93040 Regensburg (Germany)
We present a comprehensive phenomenological study of heavy flavor distributions and correlations in longitudinally polarized proton-proton collisions at BNL-RHIC. All results are obtained with a flexible parton-level Monte Carlo program at next-to-leading order accuracy and include the fragmentation into heavy mesons, their subsequent semileptonic decays, and experimental cuts. Next-to-leading order QCD corrections are found to be significant for both cross sections and double-spin asymmetries. The sensitivity of heavy flavor measurements at BNL-RHIC to the gluon polarization of the nucleon is assessed. Electron-muon and muon-muon correlations turn out to be the most promising observables. Theoretical uncertainties are estimated by varying renormalization and factorization scales, heavy quark masses, and fragmentation parameters.
- OSTI ID:
- 21313475
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 80, Issue 11; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.80.114020; (c) 2009 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0556-2821
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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