Charm Production in Hadronic and Heavy-Ion Collisions at RHIC and LHC Energies to $O(\alpha_s^3)$

Abstract

We present results on rapidity and transverse momentum distributions of inclusive charm quark production in hadronic and heavy-ion collisions at RHIC and LHC energies, including the next-to-leading order, $O(\alpha_s^3)$, radiative corrections and the nuclear shadowing effect. We determine the hadronic and the {\it effective} (in-medium) K-factor for the differential and total inclusive charm cross sections. We find the fraction of central and inelastic events that contain at least one charm quark pair at LHC energies and obtain the effective $A$-dependence of the inclusive charm production in proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions at RHIC and in nucleus-nucleus collisions at the LHC. We discuss theoretical uncertainties inherent in our calculation. In particular, we show how different extrapolations of gluon density in a nucleon {\em and} in a nucleus to the low-$x$ region introduce large theoretical uncertainty in the calculation of charm production at LHC energies.