Next-to-Leading Order Differential Cross Sections for Jψ, ψ(2S)‎, and Υ Production in Proton-Proton Collisions at a Fixed-Target Experiment Using the LHC Beams

Abstract EN

Using nonrelativistic QCD (NRQCD) factorization, we calculate the yields for J/ψ, ψ(2S), and Υ(1S) hadroproduction at s=72 GeV and 115 GeV including the next-to-leading order QCD corrections.

Both these center-of-mass energies correspond to those obtained with 7 TeV and 2.76 TeV nucleon beam impinging a fixed target.

We study the cross section integrated in pt as a function of the (center-of-mass) rapidity as well as the pt differential cross section in the central rapidity region.

Using different NLO fit results of the NRQCD long-distance matrix elements, we evaluate a theoretical uncertainty which is certainly much larger than the projected experimental uncertainties with the expected 20 fb−1 to be collected per year with AFTER@LHC for pp collision at the center of mass energy s≃115 GeV.