Revisiting Bc(*) production in Z-boson decays at NLO in QCD
Abstract
We study Bc(*) production in Z-boson decays at next-to-leading order (NLO) in QCD within the color-singlet nonrelativistic QCD framework. The analysis covers both the 1S and 2S pseudoscalar and vector states, extending the phenomenological study to radially excited Bc mesons. We calculate direct production widths and energy-fraction and invariant-mass distributions, including both charm- and bottom-quark production topologies. For the central inputs and μR=2mb, the K factors are $1.52$ for Bc and $1.33$ for Bc*. We examine uncertainties from the renormalization scale, heavy-quark masses, and wave functions at the origin, and apply the principle of maximum conformality to fix the renormalization scale from the β0-dependent NLO contribution. The NLO corrections enhance the small- and intermediate-energy-fraction regions and modify the invariant-mass spectra. We discuss these features in relation to heavy-quark fragmentation. The results provide production-rate and kinematic inputs for studies of ground-state and radially excited Bc mesons at high-statistics Z factories.
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BibTeX
@misc{ke2026revisiting,
title = {{Revisiting $B_c^(*)$ production in $Z$-boson decays at NLO in QCD}},
author = {Qi-Wei Ke and Lei Guo and Jun Zeng and Xu-Chang Zheng},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.21485},
eprint = {2610.21485},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.21485},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Revisiting B_c^(*) production in Z-boson decays at NLO in QCD
AU - Qi-Wei Ke
AU - Lei Guo
AU - Jun Zeng
AU - Xu-Chang Zheng
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/15
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.21485
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.21485
AB - We study B_c^(*) production in Z-boson decays at next-to-leading order (NLO) in QCD within the color-singlet nonrelativistic QCD framework. The analysis covers both the 1S and 2S pseudoscalar and vector states, extending the phenomenological study to radially excited B_c mesons. We calculate direct production widths and energy-fraction and invariant-mass distributions, including both charm- and bottom-quark production topologies. For the central inputs and μ_R=2m_b, the K factors are $1.52$ for B_c and $1.33$ for B_c^*. We examine uncertainties from the renormalization scale, heavy-quark masses, and wave functions at the origin, and apply the principle of maximum conformality to fix the renormalization scale from the β_0-dependent NLO contribution. The NLO corrections enhance the small- and intermediate-energy-fraction regions and modify the invariant-mass spectra. We discuss these features in relation to heavy-quark fragmentation. The results provide production-rate and kinematic inputs for studies of ground-state and radially excited B_c mesons at high-statistics Z factories.
ER -