Non-Photonic Electron $p_T$ Distributions and Correlations of Electrons from $B$ and $D$ Meson Decays with Charged Hadrons

Abstract

We compare the non-photonic electron and $D^0$ meson $p_T$ distributions measured at RHIC with the PYTHIA Monte Carlo event generator in p+p collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV. A delta fragmentation function much harder than the Peterson function, consistent with recombination scheme for charm meson formation, is needed to match the experimental data. Attempts to fit the non-photonic electrons at high $p_T$ show large uncertainties and the $B$ meson semi-leptonic decays may not be dominant for electron $p_T$ up to 8 GeV/c. Correlations of non-photonic electrons with charged hadrons are studied. We propose an experimental method to quantitatively determine the relative contributions of $D$ and $B$ meson semi-leptonic decays to the non-photonic electrons.

Comments: revised version with modified title, refined figures and more references added