Azimuthal correlations of D-mesons in $p$+$p$ and $p$+Pb collisions at LHC energies

Abstract

We study the correlations of D mesons produced in $p$+$p$ and $p$+Pb collisions. These are found to be sensitive to the effects of the cold nuclear medium and the transverse momentum ($p_T$) regions we are looking into. In order to put this on a quantitative footing, as a first step we analyse the azimuthal correlations of D meson-charged hadron(Dh), and then predict the same for D meson -anti D meson ($D\overline{D}$) pairs in $p$+$p$ and $p$+Pb collisions with strong coupling at leading order $\cal{O}$($\alpha_{s}^{2}$) and next to leading order $\cal{O}$($\alpha_{s}^{3}$) which includes space-time evolution (in both systems), as well cold nuclear matter effects (in $p$+Pb). This also sets the stage and baseline for the identification and study of medium modification of azimuthal correlations in relativistic collision of heavy nuclei at the Large Hadron Collider.