Testing perturbative QCD calculations with beauty-meson production in proton-proton collisions with ALICE

Abstract

Measurements of the production cross section of beauty hadrons in proton-proton (pp) collisions provide excellent tests of perturbative quantum chromodynamics (pQCD) calculations. Theoretical approaches based on the factorisation theorem allow for the calculation of differential cross sections for hadron production as functions of transverse momentum ($p_{\mathrm{T}}$) and rapidity ($y$). Measurements down to low transverse momenta are also fundamental ingredients for the estimation of the $\mathrm{b\overline{b}}$ production cross section. In this contribution, the measurement of $\mathrm{B^{0}}$-meson production in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=13.6$ TeV collected by the ALICE experiment during LHC Run 3 is presented. The $\mathrm{B^{0}}$ mesons are fully reconstructed via their decay channels into a D meson and a charged pion. The measured production cross section is compared with state-of-the-art pQCD calculations with next-to-leading order accuracy plus all-order resummation of next-to-leading logarithms.