- Open Access
Production of heavy flavored particles in collisions: A unified model description for results of experimental measurements by ALICE and LHCb
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 -differential production cross section of , and , and -dependent and 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 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.
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Article Text
Supplemental Material
References (39)
- B. Barman, N. Hussain, and B. Bhattacharjee, Baryon number transportation over full rapidity space in collisions at energies available at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, Phys. Rev. C 111, 014905 (2025).
- C. Bierlich, S. Chakraborty, N. Desai, L. Gellersen, I. Helenius, P. Ilten, L. Lönnblad, S. Mrenna, S. Prestel, C. T. Preuss, et al., A comprehensive guide to the physics and usage of PYTHIA 8.3, SciPost Phys. Codebases 8 (2022).
- C. Bierlich, S. Chakraborty, N. Desai, L. Gellersen, I. Helenius, P. Ilten, L. Lönnblad, S. Mrenna, S. Prestel, C. T. Preuss, et al., Codebase release 8.3 for PYTHIA, SciPost Phys. Codebases 8-r8.3 (2022).
- E. Norrbin and T. Sjöstrand, Production and hadronization of heavy quarks, Eur. Phys. J. C 17, 137 (2000).
- J. Altmann, A. Dubla, V. Greco, A. Rossi, and P. Skands, Towards the understanding of heavy quarks hadronization: From leptonic to heavy-ion collisions, Eur. Phys. J. C 85, 16 (2025).
- J. Altmann and P. Skands, String junctions revisited, J. High Energy Phys. 07 (2024) 238.
- J. Zhao, J. Aichelin, P. B. Gossiaux, A. Beraudo, S. Cao, W. Fan, M. He, V. Minissale, T. Song, I. Vitev, et al., Hadronization of heavy quarks, Phys. Rev. C 109, 054912 (2024).
- M. He and R. Rapp, Hadronization and charm-hadron ratios in heavy-ion collisions, Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 042301 (2020).
- R. Rapp and H. van Hees, in Quark-gluon plasma 4, edited by R. C. Hwa and X.-N. Wang (World Scientific, Singapore, 2010), pp. 111–206.
- S. Acharya, et al.,, production in collisions at TeV and in -Pb collisions at TeV, J. High Energy Phys. 04 (2018) 108.
- S. Acharya, et al.,, Production and Baryon-to-Meson Ratios in and -Pb Collisions at at the LHC, Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 202301 (2021).
- S. Acharya, et al.,, production in Pb-Pb collisions at , Phys. Lett. B 793, 212 (2019).
- R. Aaij, et al.,, Enhanced Production of Baryons in High-Multiplicity Collisions at , Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 081901 (2024).
- S. Acharya, et al.,, Charm fragmentation fractions and cross section in -Pb collisions at , Eur. Phys. J. C 84, 1286 (2024).
- J. Adam, et al.,, production in collisions at TeV and in collisions at TeV, Phys. Rev. C 94, 054908 (2016).
- R. Aaij, et al.,, Prompt charm production in pp collisions at , Nucl. Phys. B 871, 1 (2013).
- R. Aaij, et al.,, Study of the production of and hadrons in pp collisions and first measurement of the branching fraction, Chin. Phys. C 40, 011001 (2016).
- S. Acharya, et al., Measurement of prompt , and production in proton-proton collisions at , Phys. Rev. Lett. 128, 012001 (2022).
- P. Skands, S. Carrazza, and J. Rojo, Tuning PYTHIA 8.1: The Monash 2013 tune, Eur. Phys. J. C 74, 3024 (2014).
- B. Andersson, G. Gustafson, and B. Söderberg, A general model for jet fragmentation, Z. Phys. C 20, 317 (1983).
- T. Sjöstrand, Jet fragmentation of multiparton configurations in a string framework, Nucl. Phys. B 248, 469 (1984).
- T. Sjöstrand and M. van Zijl, A multiple-interaction model for the event structure in hadron collisions, Phys. Rev. D 36, 2019 (1987).
- T. Sjöstrand and P. Z. Skands, Multiple interactions and the structure of beam remnants, J. High Energy Phys. 03 (2004) 053.
- T. Sjöstrand and P. Z. Skands, Baryon number violation and string topologies, Nucl. Phys. B 659, 243 (2003).
- J. R. Christiansen and P. Z. Skands, String formation beyond leading, J. High Energy Phys. 08 (2015) 003.
- L. Lönnblad and H. Shah, A spatially constrained QCD reconnection in , and collisions in the Pythia8/Angantyr model, Eur. Phys. J. C 83, 575 (2023).
- N. Mallick, H. Hassan, and D. J. Kim, Charm-hadron reconstruction through three body decay in hadronic collisions using machine learning, arXiv:2504.18279.
- S. Navas, et al., (Particle Data Group), Review of particle physics, Phys. Rev. D 110, 030001 (2024).
- B. A. Kniehl, G. Kramer, I. Schienbein, and H. Spiesberger, Inclusive production in collisions with massive charm quarks, Phys. Rev. D 71, 014018 (2005).
- M. Cacciari, M. Greco, and P. Nason, The spectrum in heavy-flavour hadroproduction, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (1998) 007.
- M. G. Bowler, production of heavy quarks in the string model, Z. Phys. C 11, 169 (1981).
- X. Artru and G. Mennessier, String model and multiproduction, Nucl. Phys. B 70, 93 (1974).
- B. Andersson, G. Gustafson, and T. Sjöstrand, A model for baryon production in quark and gluon jets, Nucl. Phys. B 197, 45 (1982).
- C. Bierlich, G. Gustafson, L. Lönnblad, and H. Shah, The dynamic hadronization of charm quarks in heavy-ion collisions, Eur. Phys. J. C 84, 231 (2024).
- E. Norrbin and T. Sjöstrand, Production mechanisms of charm hadrons in the string model, Phys. Lett. B 442, 407 (1998).
- A. De Rújula, H. Georgi, and S. L. Glashow, Hadron masses in a gauge theory, Phys. Rev. D 12, 147 (1975).
- E. Abbas, et al.,, Mid-rapidity anti-baryon to baryon ratios in collisions at and measured by ALICE, Eur. Phys. J. C 73, 2496 (2013).
- R. Aaij, et al.,, Measurement of production ratios in collisions at and 7 TeV, J. High Energy Phys. 08 (2011) 034.
- See Supplemental Material at http://link.aps.org/supplemental/10.1103/sp93-wsth for showing that the reduced bottom quark mass and adjusted Bowler's multiplicative factor for bottom quark do not have any noticeable effect on the obtained results of charm sector.