English

Resolved photoproduction of the $B_c$ meson in electron-proton collisions

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2026-04-16 v2

Abstract

We present a systematic study of BcB_c meson photoproduction at electron--proton colliders within the framework of nonrelativistic QCD (NRQCD) factorization. In addition to the dominant direct channel γ+gBc+X\gamma+g\to B_c+X, we include resolved contributions initiated by g+gg+g and q+qˉ(q=u,d,s)q+\bar q (q=u,d,s) subprocesses. Total cross sections and transverse-momentum distributions are calculated for several collider configurations, including HERA, LHeC, FCC-epep, and EIC. The numerical results show that the direct γ+g\gamma+g channel provides the leading contribution over the entire kinematic range. However, the resolved g+gg+g channel yields a non-negligible correction, reaching the level of O(10%)\mathcal{O}(10\%) in the low-pTp_T region where most events are produced, and it becomes increasingly important at higher collision energies. The q+qˉq+\bar q channel is found to be numerically insignificant.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.05348,
  title  = {Resolved photoproduction of the $B_c$ meson in electron-proton collisions},
  author = {Na Cai and Xi-Jie Zhan and Tai-Fu Feng},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.05348},
  year   = {2026}
}