Heavy-quark pair production in polarized photon-photon collisions at next-to-leading order: Fully integrated total cross sections

Abstract

We consider the production of heavy-quark pairs in the collisions of polarized and unpolarized on-shell photons and present, in analytic form, the fully integrated total cross sections for total photon spins $J_z=0,\pm 2$ at next-to-leading-order in QCD. Phenomenological applications include $b\bar{b}$ production, which represents an irreducible background to standard-model intermediate-mass Higgs-boson production, as well as $t\bar{t}$ production.

Comments: Revtex, 8 pages, 1 MATHEMATICA file, trivial typo for F_{16} in Eq. (4.6) corrected, one reference added, matches the published version