Impacts of the intrinsic charm content of the proton on the $\Xi_{cc}$ hadroproduction at a fixed target experiment at the LHC

Abstract

In the present paper, we present detailed discussions on the hadronic production of $\Xi_{cc}$ at a fixed target experiment at the LHC (After@LHC). The charm quarks in hadron could be either extrinsic or intrinsic. By using the BHPS model as the intrinsic charm distribution function in proton, we observe that even if by setting the proportion of finding the intrinsic charm in a proton as $A_{\rm in}=1\%$, total cross sections for the $g+c$ and $c+c$ production mechanisms shall be enhanced by nearly two times. Thus the number of $\Xi_{cc}$ events to be generated at the After@LHC can be greatly enhanced. Since the total cross sections and differential distributions for the $\Xi_{cc}$ production at the After@LHC are sensitive to the value of $A_{\rm in}$, the After@LHC could be a good platform for testing the idea of intrinsic charm.