$D^0$ meson production in $pp$ collisions at large $Q_s^2$

The impact of the non-linear effects in the QCD dynamics on the observables is directly related to the magnitude of the saturation scale $Q_s$, which is predicted to increase with the energy, rapidity and multiplicity. In this paper, we investigate the $D^0$ meson production in $pp$ collisions at forward rapidities and/or high multiplicities considering the Color Glass Condensate (CGC) formalism and the solutions of the running coupling Balitsky - Kovchegov (BK) equation. The contributions of gluon - and charm - initiated processes are taken into account, and a comparison with the current LHCb data is performed. The impact of an intrinsic charm component in the proton's wave function is also estimated. Predictions for the self-normalized yields of $D^0$ mesons as a function of the multiplicity of coproduced charged hadrons are presented, considering $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 13$ TeV and different values of the meson rapidity. A comparison with the predictions for the kaon and isolated photon production is performed. Our results indicate that a future experimental analysis of the $D^0$ meson production at forward rapidities and high multiplicities can be useful to probe the CGC formalism and to disentangle the contribution of initial - and final - state effects.