Bottom production cross-section from double muonic decays of b-flavoured hadrons in 920-GeV proton-nucleus collision.

BY HERA-B COLLABORATION (I. ABT ET AL.). H. WAHLBERG

PHYSICS LETTERS B

Año: 2007 vol. 650 p. 103 - 110

0370-2693

The b-bbar production cross section in 920 GeV proton-nucleus fixed target collisions is measured by observing double muonic decays of b-flavored hadrons in the kinematic region $-0.3<\xF(\mu)<0.15$. A total number of $76\pm12$ b-bbar events is obtained with a likelihood fit of the signal and background simulated events to the data. The resulting cross section is $\sigbb = 16.2 \pm 2.5_{stat} \pm 2.8_{sys} \nbpn$, or, when combined with a previous Hera-B measurement of similar precision, $\sigbb = 15.4 \pm 1.7_{stat} \pm 1.2_{sys}^{uncorr.} \pm 1.9_{sys}^{corr.} \nbpn$, which is consistent with recent NLO calculations.