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Production of heavy flavored particles in pp collisions: A unified model description for results of experimental measurements by ALICE and LHCb

Tonmoy Sharma*, Banajit Barman†, and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee‡

  • Nuclear and Radiation Physics Research Laboratory, Department of Physics, Gauhati University, Guwahati, Assam 781014, India

  • *Contact author: tonmoy.sharma@cern.ch
  • †Contact author: banajit.barman@cern.ch
  • ‡Contact author: buddhadeb.bhattacharjee@cern.ch

Phys. Rev. C 113, 034918 – Published 24 March, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/sp93-wsth

Abstract

The study of heavy-flavored baryon and meson production in proton-proton (pp) collisions provides crucial insight into the hadronization mechanisms of quantum chromodynamics (QCD). In this work an attempt has been made to describe the existing ALICE and LHCb results on the pT-differential production cross section of Λc+, D0, Λb0, and B¯0, and pT-dependent Λc+/D0 and Λb0/B¯0(B0) ratios, in light of the color-string junction inspired PYTHIA-8.314 model. A comparison of the results obtained with various event samples generated with different tuning parameters and the existing experimental results of ALICE and LHCb at s= 7 and 13 TeV underlines the relevance of string-junction dynamics in heavy-flavored particle production. The results of the present investigation reveal that while stopping the junction-antijunction reconfiguration in the nonperturbative PYTHIA-8.314 model successfully describes the considered ALICE experimental observables of the charm sector, on the other hand, allowing junction-antijunction reconfiguration, keeping other fragmentation parameters the same, better describes the LHCb experimental observables of both charm and bottom sectors.

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