# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The investigation of heavy quarks production in high energy hadron collisions provides a method for studying the internal structure of hadrons. Some problems are the same in hadroproduction and photo-/electroproduction processes. So, the review of the situation of the heavy quark hadroproduction can be useful for the interpretation of HERA data.

In this talk we present a short review of heavy quark hadroproduction. The theoretical predictions are usually obtained in the NLO parton model . The assumptions which are used for simplifications of the computations are considered in Sect. 2. In the case of one-particle distributions even LO ($`\alpha _s^2`$) parton model with collinear approximation is enough for the data description, NLO contributions ($`\alpha _s^3`$) only change the normalizations. On the other hand, in the case of two-particle distributions, see Sect. 3, the collinear approximation has failed, and it is necessary to account for the transverse momenta of the incident partons. The possibility to include the transverse momenta of the incident partons in the framework of semihard theory , where the virtualities and polarizations of the gluons are taken into account, is considered in Sect. 4. In Ref.  we presented the results for main and simplest subprocess, $`gg\overline{Q}Q(\alpha _s^2)`$ for hadroproduction, and $`\gamma g\overline{Q}Q(\alpha _s)`$ for photo- and electroproduction.

## 2 Conventional NLO parton model

The conventional NLO parton model expression for the heavy quark hadroproduction cross sections has the factorization form :

$$\sigma (abQ\overline{Q})=\underset{ij}{}𝑑x_i𝑑x_jG_{a/i}(x_i,\mu _F)G_{b/j}(x_j,\mu _F)\widehat{\sigma }(ijQ\overline{Q}),$$
(1)   
where $`G_{a/i}(x_i,\mu _F)`$ and $`G_{b/j}(x_j,\mu _F)`$ are the structure functions of partons $`i`$ and $`j`$ in the colliding hadrons $`a`$ and $`b`$, $`\mu _F`$ is the factorization scale (i.e. virtualities of incident partons) and $`\widehat{\sigma }(ijQ\overline{Q})`$ is the cross section of the subprocess which is calculated in perturbative QCD. The last cross section can be written as a sum of LO and NLO contributions, $`\widehat{\sigma }(ijQ\overline{Q})=\alpha _s^2(\mu _R)\sigma _{ij}^{(o)}+\alpha _s^3(\mu _R)\sigma _{ij}^{(1)}`$, where $`\mu _R`$ is the renormalization scale, and $`\sigma _{ij}^{(o)}`$ as well as $`\sigma _{ij}^{(1)}`$ depend practically only on one variable $`\rho =\frac{4m_Q^2}{\widehat{s}}`$ , $`\widehat{s}=x_ix_js_{ab}`$.

The expression (1) corresponds to the process shown schematically in Fig. 1 with

$$q_{1T}=q_{2T}=0.$$
(2)   
The main contribution to the cross section at small $`x`$ is known to come from gluon-gluon fusion, $`i=j=g`$.

The principal uncertainties of any numerical QCD calculation of heavy flavour production are connected with the unknown values of the parameters: both scales, $`\mu _F`$ and $`\mu _R`$<sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1These uncertainties should disappear when one sums up all the high order contributions. Sometimes people say that strong scale dependence of the calculated results in LO or NLO means the large contribution of high order diagrams and weak dependence means their small contribution. Of course, it is not true. Strong scale dependence of NLO results means only strong scale dependence of high order contributions but at some fixed scale value the last ones can be numerically small. Weak scale dependence of NLO results means weak scale dependence of high order terms but they can be numerically large., and the exact value of heavy quark mass, $`m_Q`$. The values of both scales should be of the order of hardness of the considered process, however nobody can say what is better to use for scales, $`m_Q`$, $`m_T=\sqrt{m_Q^2+p_T^2}`$ or $`\widehat{s}`$. The phenomenological parton densities are sometimes (at very small $`x`$) in contradiction  with the general properties of perturbative QCD. However it is just the region that dominates in the heavy quark production at high energies<sup>2</sup><sup>2</sup>2In the case of charm production, $`m_c`$ = 1.4GeV, at LHC, $`\sqrt{s}`$ = 14 TeV, the product $`x_1x_2`$ of two gluons (both $`x_1`$ and $`x_2`$ are the integral variable) is equal to $`410^8`$.. Another problem of parton model is the collinear approximation. The transverse momenta of the incident partons, $`q_{iT}`$ and $`q_{jT}`$ are assumed to be zero, and their virtualities are accounted for only via structure functions; the cross sections $`\sigma _{ij}^{(o)}`$ and $`\sigma _{ij}^{(1)}`$ are assumed to be independent on these virtualities.

The NLO parton model calculations of the total cross sections of $`c\overline{c}`$ and $`b\overline{b}`$ production, as functions of the beam energy, for $`\pi ^{}N`$ and $`pN`$ collisions can be found in . These results depend strongly (on the level of several times) on the numerical values of quark masses as well as on the both scales, $`\mu _F`$ and $`\mu _R`$. Some experimental data are in contradiction with each other, however generally they are in agreement with NLO parton model predictions.

The NLO contributions to one-particle distributions lead only to renormalization of LO results, practically without correction of the shapes of a distributions . It means that instead of more complicate calculation of $`p_T`$, or rapidity distributions, in NLO, it is enough to calculate them in LO, and multiply after by K-factor

$$K=\frac{LO+NLO}{LO},$$
(3)   
which can be taken, say, from the results for total production cross sections. The comparison of LO + NLO calculations with LO multiplied by K-factor is presented in Fig. 2 taken from Ref. .

The values of K-factors and their energy and scale dependences for several sets of structure functions were calculated in Refs. .

The experimental data for $`x_F`$-distributions of D-mesons produced in $`\pi N`$ interactions  are in agreement with the parton model distributions for bare quarks, as one can see in Fig. 3 taken from . It means that the fragmentation processes are not important here, or they are compensated by, say, recombination processes. The shape of $`x_F`$-distributions does not depend practically on the mass of $`c`$-quark.

The data on one-particle $`p_T`$-distributions,including the hadronic colliders data for the case of beauty production, also can be described by the NLO parton model, see .

## 3 Azimuthal correlations and failure of the collinear approximation

The azimuthal angle $`\varphi `$ is defined as an opening angle between two produced heavy quarks, projected onto a plane perpendicular to the beam. In the LO parton model this angle between them is exactly $`180^o`$. In the case of NLO parton model a distribution over $`\varphi `$ angle appears .

The investigation of such distributions is very important. In one-partricle distributions, the sum of LO and NLO contributions of the parton model practically coinsides with the LO contribution multiplied by $`K`$-factor. So we can not control the magnitudes of LO and NLO contributions separately. In the case of azimuthal correlations all difference from the trivial $`\delta (\varphi \pi )`$ distribution comes from NLO contribution.

The experimental data on azimuthal correlations are claimed (see  and Refs. therein) to be in disagreement with the NLO predictions, for the cases of charm pair hadro- and photoproduction at fixed target energies. The level of disagreements can be seen in Fig. 4 (solid histograms) taken from Ref. . These data can be described , assuming the comparatively large intrinsic transverse momenta of incoming partons ($`k_T`$ kick). For each event, in the longitudinal centre-of-mass frame of the heavy quark pair, the $`Q\overline{Q}`$ system is boosted to rest. Then a second transverse boost is performed, which gives the pair a transverse momentum equal to $`\stackrel{}{p}_T(Q\overline{Q})+\stackrel{}{k}_T(1)+\stackrel{}{k}_T(2)`$; $`\stackrel{}{k}_T(1)`$ and $`\stackrel{}{k}_T(2)`$ are the transverse momenta of the incoming partons, which are chosen randomly, with their moduli distributed according to

$$\frac{1}{N}\frac{dN}{dk_T^2}=\frac{1}{k_T^2}\mathrm{exp}(k_T^2/k_T^2).$$
(4)   
The dashed and dotted histograms in Fig. 4 correspond to the NLO parton model prediction, supplemented with the $`k_T`$ kick, with $`k_T^2=0.5`$ GeV<sup>2</sup> and $`k_T^2=1`$ GeV<sup>2</sup>, respectively. We see that with $`k_T^2=1`$ GeV<sup>2</sup> it is possible  to describe the data.

However the large intrinsic transverse momentum significantly changes one-particle $`p_T`$-distributions of heavy flavour hadrons, which were in good agreement with the data. The solid curves in Fig. 5 taken from  represent the NLO parton model predictions for charm quarks $`p_T`$-distributions which are in agreement with the data. The effect of the $`k_T`$ kick results in a hardening of the $`p_T^2`$ spectrum. On the other hand, by combining the $`k_T`$ kick with $`k_T^2=1`$ GeV<sup>2</sup> and the Peterson fragmentation , the theoretical predictions slightly undershoot the data (dot-dashed curves).

The $`k_T`$ kick can only very weakly change the $`x_F`$-distributions of produced $`c`$-quarks, Fig. 3, and after accounting the fragmentation these distributions can become too soft.

Let us consider why the conventional NLO parton model with collinear approximation works reasonably for one-particle diustributions, and, at the same time, it is in disagreement with the data on azimuthal correlations.

The contribution of the processes of Fig. 1, which governs the heavy quark production can be written<sup>3</sup><sup>3</sup>3We omit for simplicity all factors which are non-essential here. as a convolution of initial transverse momenta distributions, $`I(q_{1T})`$ and $`I(q_{2T})`$, with squared modulo of perturbative QCD matrix element, $`|M(q_{1T},q_{2T},p_{1T},p_{2T})|^2`$ :

$$\sigma _{QCD}(Q\overline{Q})d^2q_{1T}d^2q_{2T}I(q_{1T})I(q_{2T})|M(q_{1T},q_{2T},p_{1T},p_{2T})|^2.$$
(5)   
Now there are two possibilities:   
i) the essential values of initial transverse momenta are much smaller than the transverse momenta of produced heavy quarks, $`q_{iT}p_{iT}`$, and   
ii) all transverse momenta are of the same order, $`q_{iT}p_{iT}`$.

In LO for the first case (i) we can wait that one-dimentional $`p_T`$ distributions should be more broad than the distributions on the transverse momenta of the quark pair, because in LO $`q_{1T}+q_{2T}=p_{1T}+p_{2T}`$. NLO gives here a correction, numerically not very large, see Fig. 2. In this case one can replace both the initial distributions $`I(q_{iT})`$ by $`\delta `$-functions, $`\delta (q_{iT})`$. This reduces the expression (5) to the very simplified one :

$$\sigma _{coll.}(Q\overline{Q})|M(0,0,p_{1T},p_{2T})|^2,$$
(6)   
in total agreement with Weizsaecker-Williams approximation in QED.

In the second case (ii) the distributions on the transverse momenta of the quark pair should be the same, or even more broad than the one-particle $`p_T`$-distributions, and namely this situation is realised . In this case we can not wait a priory that the Weizsaecker-Williams approximation will give good results, however it works quite reasonably in the case of one-particle distributions. In the case of distribution on the transverse momentum of the heavy-quark pair, $`p_T^2(Q\overline{Q})`$ we measure (only approximately in NLO) the distribution over the sum of transverse momenta of incident gluons. In this case it seems to be senseless to replace the distributions $`I(q_{1T})`$ and $`I(q_{2T})`$ by $`\delta `$-functions, and to expect a reasonable agreement with the data. The same can be said about the azimuthal correlations.

The $`k_t`$ kick  effectively accounts for the transverse momenta of incident partons. It uses the expression which can be written symbollically as

$$\sigma _{kick}(Q\overline{Q})I(q_{1T})I(q_{2T})|M(0,0,p_{1T},p_{2T})|^2,$$
(7)   
and the main difference from the general QCD expression Eq. (5) is that due to absence of $`q_{iT}`$ in the matrix element the values of $`k_T^2`$ in Eq. (4) should be different for different processes and kinematical regions. The reason is that in Eq. (5) the values $`I(q_{iT})`$ decrease at large $`q_{iT}^2`$ as a weak power (see next Sect.), i.e. comparatively slowly, and more important is the $`q_{iT}^2`$ dependence of the matrix element. In the last one the corrections of the order of $`q_{iT}^2/\mu ^2`$, where $`\mu ^2`$ is the QCD scale, are small enough when $`q_{iT}^2/\mu ^2<<1`$ and they start to suppress a matrix element value when $`q_{iT}^2/\mu ^21`$.

## 4 Heavy quark production in semihard approximation

Let us consider another approach, when the transverse momenta of incident gluons in the small-$`x`$ region appear from the diffusion of transverse momenta in the gluon evolution<sup>4</sup><sup>4</sup>4The similar approach based on $`k_T`$-factorization formulae can be found, for example, in Refs. .. This diffusion is described by the function $`\phi (x,q^2)`$ determined  as

$$\phi (x,q^2)=4\sqrt{2}\pi ^3\frac{d[xG(x,q^2)]}{dq^2},$$
(8)   
where $`G(x,q^2)`$ is usual gluon structure function.

In principle the function $`\phi (x,q^2)`$ which determine the probability to find gluon with fixed value of transverse momentum, $`q_T`$, depends on three variables, $`x`$, $`q_T`$ and gluon virtuality $`q^2`$. However at small $`x`$ in LLA $`q_T^2q^2`$, and it leads to comparatively weak dependence of $`\phi (x,q^2)`$ on $`q_T^2`$ (strongly different from exponential dependence in Eq. (4)) due to weak $`q^2`$-dependences of phenomenological structure functions.

The exact expression for gluon $`q_T`$-distributions can be obtained, as a solution of the nonlinear evolution equation. The calculations  result in difference from our $`\phi (x,q^2)`$ function only about 10-15%.

The matrix element $`M_{QQ}`$ accounting for the gluon virtualities and polarizations is much more complicate than the parton model one. That is why we consider only LO contribution of the subprocess $`ggQ\overline{Q}`$. The differential cross section of heavy quarks hadroproduction has the form

$$\frac{d\sigma _{pp}}{dy_1^{}dy_2^{}d^2p_{1T}d^2p_{2T}}=\frac{1}{(2\pi )^8}\frac{1}{(s)^2}d^2q_{1T}d^2q_{2T}\delta (q_{1T}+q_{2T}p_{1T}p_{2T})$$

$$\times \frac{\alpha _s(q_1^2)}{q_1^2}\frac{\alpha _s(q_2^2)}{q_2^2}\phi (q_1^2,y)\phi (q_2^2,x)|M_{QQ}|^2.$$
(9)   
Here $`s=2p_ap_b`$ and $`y_{1,2}^{}`$ are the quarks’ rapidities in the hadron-hadron c.m.s. frame.

Eq. (9) enables to calculate straightforwardly all distributions concerning heavy flavour one-particle, or pair production. However there exists a problem coming from infrared region. Gluon structure function in Eq. (8) is not determined at small virtualities, so the function $`\phi (x,q_2^2)`$ is unknown at the small values of $`q_2^2`$ and $`q_1^2`$. To solve this problem we will use the direct consequence of Eq. (8) 

$$xG(x,q^2)=xG(x,Q_0^2)+\frac{1}{4\sqrt{2}\pi ^3}_{Q_0^2}^{q^2}𝑑q_1^2\phi (x,q_1^2),$$
(10)   
and rewrite  the integrals in the Eq. (9) as the sum of four contributions. The first one is determined by the product of two gluon distributions, $`G(x,Q_0^2)`$ and $`G(y,Q_0^2)`$, and it is the same as the conventional LO parton model expression. Next three terms contain the corrections to the parton model. If the initial energy is not high enough, the first term dominates. In the case of very high energy the first term can be considered as a small corrections, and our results are differ from the conventional ones. In the cases when the collinear approximation is available, our results only slightly differ from the parton model.

It is illustrated in Fig. 6 taken from , where we compare our calculations of $`b`$-quark $`p_T`$-distributions with the experimental results of CDF collaboration and with two variants of parton model calculations. The distributions over the azimuthal angle $`\varphi `$ can be found in .

The essential values of $`q_{1T}`$ and $`q_{2T}`$ in our calculations increase with increase the value of $`p_T^{min}`$ of detected $`b`$-quark. In the language of $`k_T`$ kick it means that the values of $`k_T^2`$ will be also increased.

## 5 Conclusion

The experimental results on total cross sections for charm and beauty production are in agreement with the conventional parton model predictions, using reasonable values of QCD scales and quark masses. The data on $`x_F`$ and $`p_T`$ distributions are also in reasonable agreement with parton model without any fragmentation functions<sup>5</sup><sup>5</sup>5The $`p_T`$ distributions of charm photoproduction measured by E691 Coll.  are more hard than the NLO parton model predictions , that can be considered  as an argument for including a non-perturbative fragmentation function. However, the $`p_T`$ slope of the calculated spectrum depends strongly on the charm quark mass, and the measured charm production cross section has very strange energy dependence ..

Moreover, the shapes of one-particle LO and NLO distributions practically coinside. It means that instead of calculation the NLO contributions, it is enough to calculate only LO contributions, and rescale them using K-factor taken, say, from the calculated ratio of total cross sections.

In the case of distribution over the total transverse momentum of the produced quark pair, or azimuthal correlations, the conventional NLO parton model with collinear approximation can not describe the data. The $`k_T`$ kick  allows one to describe these data, however the problems with one-particle $`p_T`$-distributions appear, which can be solved by introducing the fragmentation function. The last way should produce the problems in description of $`x_F`$-spectra. Moreover, it seems that the $`k_T^2`$ values should depend on the process and the kinematical regions.

Another possibility to solve the problems of initial transverse momenta is to use semihard theory, accounting for the virtual nature of the interacting gluons, as well as their transverse motion and different polarizations. It results in a qualitative differences with the LO parton model predictions . In Ref.  the values of $`F_2(x,Q^2)`$ were calculated using phenomenological gluon structure functions, and the infrared contributions to $`F_2(x,Q^2)`$ were investigated in details. The possible estimations of the shadow corrections in the processes of heavy flavour production can be found in Refs. .

I am grateful to M.G.Ryskin and A.G.Shuvaev for multiple discussions, to M.L.Mangano for very useful critical comments and to E.M.Levin who participated at the early stage of this activity. I thank the Organizing Commitee of HERA Monte Carlo Workshop for financial support. This work is supported by grant NATO OUTR.LG 971390.