Analytic Calculation of Prompt Photon plus Associated Heavy Flavor at Next-to-Leading Order in QCD

Abstract

Contributions through second order, $O(\alpha ^2_s)$, in perturbative quantum chromodynamics are calculated analytically for inclusive associated production of a prompt photon and a charm quark at large values of transverse momentum in high energy hadron-hadron collisions. Seven partonic subprocesses contribute at order $\alpha^2_s$. We find important corrections to the lowest order, $O(\alpha_s)$, subprocess $c g \rightarrow \gamma c$. We demonstrate to what extent data from $p +\bar{p}\rightarrow \gamma + c + X$ may serve to measure the charm quark density in the nucleon.