Measurement of charm and beauty photoproduction at HERA using D*mu correlations

Abstract

A measurement of charm and beauty photoproduction at the electron proton collider HERA is presented based on the simultaneous detection of a D*± meson and a muon. The correlation between the D* meson and the muon serves to separate the charm and beauty contributions and the analysis provides comparable sensitivity to both. The total and differential experimental cross sections are compared to LO and NLO QCD calculations. The measured charm cross section is in good agreement with QCD predictions including higher order effects while the beauty cross section is higher.