The $B_c(B_c^{\ast })$ meson production via the proton-nucleus and the nucleus-nucleus collision modes at the colliders RHIC and LHC

Abstract

In the paper, we make a comprehensive study on the hadroproduction of the $B_c(B_c^{\ast })$ meson via the gluon-gluon fusion mechanism at the RHIC and LHC colliders. Total and differential cross sections via the proton-nucleus ($p$-N) and nucleus-nucleus (N-N) collision modes have been discussed under various collision energies. To compare with those via the proton-proton collision mode at the LHC, we observe that sizable number of $B_c(B_c^{\ast })$-meson events can also be produced via the $p$-N and N-N collision modes at the RHIC and LHC. If assuming the spin-triplet $B_c^{\ast }$ meson directly decays to the spin-singlet $B_c$ meson with $100\%$ probability, $1.2\times 10^5$ and $4.7\times 10^5$ $B_c$-meson events can be produced via the $p$-Au and Au-Au collision modes at the RHIC in one operation year; $5.8\times 10^6$ and $4.6\times 10^6$ $B_c$-meson events can be produced via the $p$-Pb and Pb-Pb collision modes at the LHC in one operation year.

Comments: 9 pages, 7 figures. Revised version to be published in Phys.Rev.D