An Ordered analysis of heavy flavor production in deep inelastic scattering

Sep, 1997
48 pages
Published in:
  • Phys.Rev.D 57 (1998) 6871-6898
e-Print:
Report number:
  • RAL-TR-97-049

Citations per year

1997200420112018202505101520
Abstract:
At low Q^2, charm production in deep-inelastic scattering is adequately described by assuming generation in electroweak boson-light parton scattering (dominantly boson-gluon fusion) which naturally incorporates the correct threshold behaviour. At high Q^2 this description is inadequate, since it does not sum logs in Q^2/m_c^2, and is replaced by the treatment of the charm quark as a light parton. We show how the problem of going from one description to the other can be solved in a satisfactory manner to all orders. The key ingredient is the constraint of matching the evolution of the physical structure function F_2 order by order in alpha_s(Q^2) in addition to the matching of the value of F_2 itself. This leads to new expressions for the coefficient functions associated with the charm parton which are unique in incorporating both the correct threshold and asymptotic behaviours at each order in perturbation theory. The use of these improved coefficients lead to an improvement in global fits and an excellent description of the observed F_2,charm.
  • electron p: deep inelastic scattering
  • muon p: deep inelastic scattering
  • muon deuteron: deep inelastic scattering
  • neutral current
  • quark: electroproduction
  • charm
  • structure function: charm
  • model: parton
  • correction: mass
  • mass: charm