Measurement of beauty production in deep inelastic scattering at HERA

The beauty production cross section for deep inelastic scattering events with at least one hard jet in the Breit frame together with a muon has been measured, for photon virtualities Q > 2 GeV, with the ZEUS detector at HERA using integrated luminosity of 72 pb. The total visible cross section is σbb(ep → e jet μ X) = 40.9 ± 5.7 (stat.) −4.4(syst.) pb. The next-to-leading order QCD prediction lies about 2.5 standard deviations below the data. The differential cross sections are in general consistent with the NLO QCD predictions; however at low values of Q, Bjorken x, and muon transverse momentum, and high values of jet transverse energy and muon pseudorapidity, the prediction is about two standard deviations below the data. The ZEUS Collaboration S. Chekanov, M. Derrick, J.H. Loizides, S. Magill, S. Miglioranzi, B. Musgrave, J. Repond, R. Yoshida Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439-4815, USA n M.C.K. Mattingly Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan 49104-0380, USA N. Pavel Institut für Physik der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany P. Antonioli, G. Bari, M. Basile, L. Bellagamba, D. Boscherini, A. Bruni, G. Bruni, G. Cara Romeo, L. Cifarelli, F. Cindolo, A. Contin, M. Corradi, S. De Pasquale, P. Giusti, G. Iacobucci, A. Margotti, A. Montanari, R. Nania, F. Palmonari, A. Pesci, L. Rinaldi, G. Sartorelli, A. Zichichi University and INFN Bologna, Bologna, Italy e G. Aghuzumtsyan, D. Bartsch, I. Brock, S. Goers, H. Hartmann, E. Hilger, P. Irrgang, H.-P. Jakob, O. Kind, U. Meyer, E. Paul, J. Rautenberg, R. Renner, A. Stifutkin, J. Tandler, K.C. Voss, M. Wang Physikalisches Institut der Universität Bonn, Bonn, Germany b D.S. Bailey, N.H. Brook, J.E. Cole, G.P. Heath, T. Namsoo, S. Robins, M. Wing H.H. Wills Physics Laboratory, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom m M. Capua, A. Mastroberardino, M. Schioppa, G. Susinno Calabria University, Physics Department and INFN, Cosenza, Italy e J.Y. Kim, I.T. Lim, K.J. Ma, M.Y. Pac Chonnam National University, Kwangju, South Korea g M. Helbich, Y. Ning, Z. Ren, W.B. Schmidke, F. Sciulli Nevis Laboratories, Columbia University, Irvington on Hudson, New York 10027 o J. Chwastowski, A. Eskreys, J. Figiel, A. Galas, K. Olkiewicz, P. Stopa, L. Zawiejski Institute of Nuclear Physics, Cracow, Poland i L. Adamczyk, T. Bo ld, I. Grabowska-Bo ld, D. Kisielewska, A.M. Kowal, M. Kowal, J. Lukasik, M. Przybycień, L. Suszycki, D. Szuba, J. Szuba Faculty of Physics and Nuclear Techniques, AGH-University of Science and Technology, Cracow, Poland p A. Kotański, W. S lomiński Department of Physics, Jagellonian University, Cracow, Poland