Proton Structure Functions at Next-to-Leading Order in the Dipole Picture with Massive Quarks
Henri Hänninen, Heikki Mäntysaari, Risto Paatelainen, Jani Penttala
Abstract
We predict heavy quark production cross sections in deep inelastic scattering at high energy by applying the color glass condensate effective theory. We demonstrate that, when the calculation is performed consistently at next-to-leading order accuracy with massive quarks, it becomes possible, for the first time in the dipole picture with perturbatively calculated center-of-mass energy evolution, to simultaneously describe both the light and heavy quark production data at small x_{Bj}. Furthermore, we show how the heavy quark cross section data provides additional strong constraints on the extracted nonperturbative initial condition for the small-x_{Bj} evolution equations.
Topics & Concepts
PhysicsQuarkDipoleParticle physicsCenter of mass (relativistic)Cross section (physics)Color-glass condensateDeep inelastic scatteringNuclear physicsProtonScatteringInelastic scatteringGluonQuantum mechanicsEnergy–momentum relationHigh-Energy Particle Collisions ResearchParticle physics theoretical and experimental studiesQuantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions