Single electrons from heavy-flavor decays in p+p collisions at Vs=200 GeV

Abstract

The invariant differential cross section for inclusive electron production in p+p collisions at Vs=200 GeV has been measured by the PHENIX experiment at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider over the transverse momentum range 0.4≤pT≤5.0 GeV/c in the central rapidity region (|η|≤0.35). The contribution to the inclusive electron spectrum from semileptonic decays of hadrons carrying heavy flavor, i.e., charm quarks or, at high pT, bottom quarks, is determined via three independent methods. The resulting electron spectrum from heavy-flavor decays is compared to recent leading and next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculations. The total cross section of charm quark-antiquark pair production is determined to be σcc̅ =0.92±0.15(stat)±0.54(syst) mb.