(D^0\) meson production in \(pp\) collisions at large \(Q_s^2\)

• Published in: arXiv.org 2024-05
• Main Authors: Lima, Yuri N, Giannini, André V, Goncalves, Victor P
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Collisions; Formalism; Hadrons; Kaons; Mesons; Particle production; Wave functions
• ISSN: 2331-8422

The impact of the non-linear effects in the QCD dynamics on the observables is directly related to the magnitude of the saturation scale \(Q_s\), which is predicted to increase with the energy, rapidity and multiplicity. In this paper, we investigate the \(D^0\) meson production in \(pp\) collisions at forward rapidities and/or high multiplicities considering the Color Glass Condensate (CGC) formalism and the solutions of the running coupling Balitsky - Kovchegov (BK) equation. The contributions of gluon - and charm - initiated processes are taken into account, and a comparison with the current LHCb data is performed. The impact of an intrinsic charm component in the proton's wave function is also estimated. Predictions for the self-normalized yields of \(D^0\) mesons as a function of the multiplicity of coproduced charged hadrons are presented, considering \(pp\) collisions at \(\sqrt{s} = 13\) TeV and different values of the meson rapidity. A comparison with the predictions for the kaon and isolated photon production is performed. Our results indicate that a future experimental analysis of the \(D^0\) meson production at forward rapidities and high multiplicities can be useful to probe the CGC formalism and to disentangle the contribution of initial - and final - state effects.