Measurements of pairs from open heavy flavor and Drell-Yan in collisions at GeV

Aidala, C.*; Hasegawa, Shoichi   ; Imai, Kenichi; Sako, Hiroyuki   ; Sato, Susumu  ; Tanida, Kiyoshi   ; PHENIX Collaboration*; 287 of others*

PHENIX reports differential cross sections of pairs from semileptonic heavy-flavor decays and the Drell-Yan production mechanism measured in collisions at GeV at forward and backward rapidity (). The pairs from , , and Drell-Yan are separated using a simultaneous fit to unlike- and like-sign muon pair spectra in mass and . The azimuthal opening angle correlation between the muons from and decays and the pair- distributions are compared to distributions generated using and models, which both include next-to-leading order processes. The measured distributions for pairs from are consistent with calculations. The data presents narrower azimuthal correlations and softer distributions compared to distributions generated from . The data are well described by both models. The extrapolated total cross section for bottom production is [b], which is consistent with previous measurements at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider in the same system at the same collision energy, and is approximately a factor of two higher than the central value calculated with theoretical models. The measured Drell-Yan cross section is in good agreement with next-to-leading-order quantum-chromodynamics calculations.