Nonphotonic electrons at BNL RHIC within the ${k}_{t}$-factorization approach and with experimental semileptonic decay functions

Nonphotonic electrons at BNL RHIC within the $k_{t}$ -factorization approach and with experimental semileptonic decay functions

M. Łuszczak, R. Maciuła, and A. Szczurek

Phys. Rev. D 79, 034009 – Published 10 February 2009

Abstract

We discuss production of nonphotonic electrons in proton-proton scattering at the relativistic heavy ion collider. The distributions in rapidity and transverse momentum of charm and bottom quarks/antiquarks are calculated in the $k_{t}$ -factorization approach. We use Kwieciński unintegrated parton distributions and Ivanov-Nikolaev unintegrated gluon distribution. The hadronization of heavy quarks is done by means of Peterson and Braaten et al. fragmentation functions. The semileptonic decay functions are found by fitting recent semileptonic data obtained by the CLEO and BABAR collaborations. We get good description of the data at large transverse momenta of electrons and find a missing strength concentrated at small transverse momenta of electrons. Plausible missing mechanisms are discussed.