The Puzzle of the Bottom Quark Production Cross Section

Abstract

The production rate of bottom quarks at hadron colliders exceeds the expectations of next-to-leading order perturbative quantum chromodynamics. An additional contribution from pair-production of light gluinos, of mass 12 to 16 GeV, with two-body decays into bottom quarks and light bottom squarks, yields a differential cross section for bottom quarks in better agreement with data. The masses of the gluino and bottom squark are restricted further by the ratio of like-sign to opposite-sign leptons at hadron colliders. Restrictions on this scenario from other data are summarized, and predictions are made for other processes such as Upsilon decay into a pair of bottom squarks.