Measurement of beauty production from dimuon events at HERA

Beauty production in events containing two muons in the final state has been measured with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 114 pb. A low transverse-momentum threshold for muon identification, in combination with the large rapidity coverage of the ZEUS muon system, gives access to almost the full phase space for beauty production. The total cross section for beauty production in ep collisions at √ s = 318 GeV has been measured to be σtot(ep→ bb̄X) = 13.9± 1.5(stat.) −4.3(syst.) nb. Differential cross sections and a measurement of bb̄ correlations are also obtained, and compared to other beauty cross-section measurements, Monte Carlo models and next-to-leading-order QCD predictions. The ZEUS Collaboration S. Chekanov, M. Derrick, S. Magill, B. Musgrave, D. Nicholass, 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 P. Antonioli, G. Bari, L. Bellagamba, D. Boscherini, A. Bruni, G. Bruni, F. Cindolo, M. Corradi, G. Iacobucci, A. Margotti, R. Nania, A. Polini INFN Bologna, Bologna, Italy e S. Antonelli, M. Basile, M. Bindi, L. Cifarelli, A. Contin, S. De Pasquale, G. Sartorelli, A. Zichichi University and INFN Bologna, Bologna, Italy e D. Bartsch, I. Brock, H. Hartmann, E. Hilger, H.-P. Jakob, M. Jüngst, A.E. Nuncio-Quiroz, E. Paul, U. Samson, V. Schönberg, R. Shehzadi, M. Wlasenko Physikalisches Institut der Universität Bonn, Bonn, Germany b N.H. Brook, G.P. Heath, J.D. Morris H.H. Wills Physics Laboratory, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom m M. Kaur, P. Kaur, I. Singh Panjab University, Department of Physics, Chandigarh, India M. Capua, S. Fazio, A. Mastroberardino, M. Schioppa, G. Susinno, E. Tassi Calabria University, Physics Department and INFN, Cosenza, Italy e J.Y. Kim Chonnam National University, Kwangju, South Korea Z.A. Ibrahim, B. Kamaluddin, W.A.T. Wan Abdullah Jabatan Fizik, Universiti Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia r Y. Ning, Z. Ren, 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 The Henryk Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Cracow, Poland i L. Adamczyk, T. Bo ld, I. Grabowska-Bo ld, D. Kisielewska, J. Lukasik, M. Przybycień, L. Suszycki Faculty of Physics and Applied Computer Science, AGH-University of Science and Technology, Cracow, Poland p