Perturbative QCD Fragmentation Functions for Production of P-wave Mesons with Charm and Beauty

Abstract

We calculate the leading order QCD fragmentation functions for the production of $P$-wave charmed beauty mesons. Long-distance effects are factored into two nonperturbative parameters: the derivative of the radial wavefunction at the origin and a second parameter related to the probability for a $(\bar{b}c)$ heavy quark pair that is produced in a color-octet $S$-wave state to form a color-singlet $P$-wave bound state. The four $2P$ states and those $3P$ states which lie below the $BD$ flavor threshold eventually all decay into the $1S$ ground state $B_c$ through hadronic cascades or by emitting photons. The total fragmentation probabilities for production of the $1S$ ground state $B_c$ from the cascades of the $2P$ and $3P$ states are about $1.7\times 10^{-4}$ and $2.3\times 10^{-4}$ respectively. Thus the direct production of the $P$-wave states via fragmentation may account for a significant fraction of the inclusive production rate of the $B_c$ at large transverse momentum in high energy colliders. Our analytic results for the $P$-wave fragmentation functions disagree with those obtained earlier in the literature.

Comments: 31 pages, Latex file, 1 figure (postscript file appended at the end)