Bottom quark production cross section at fixed-target $pp$ experiments

Abstract

The cross section for bottom quark production at fixed-target energies is calculated for a wide range of beam momenta. A detailed analysis is given for the HERA-B experiment. We consider both the order ${\alpha }_s^3$ cross section and the resummation of soft gluon corrections in all orders of QCD perturbation theory. The inclusive transverse momentum and rapidity distributions, including resummation, for bottom quark production at HERA-B are also presented.

24 pages plain LATEX, 24 figures submitted as separate file. Complete postcript file including figures available at ftp://insti.physics.sunysb.edu/preprints/kidonaki/botpaper.tar.Z