Open charm production cross section from combined LHC experiments in pp collisions at s = 5. 02 TeV

Abstract Open charm production in proton–proton collisions represents an important tool to investigate some of the most fundamental aspects of quantum chromodynamics, from the partonic mechanisms of heavy-quark production to the process of heavy-quark hadronisation. Over the last decade, the measurement of the production cross sections of charm mesons and baryons in proton–proton (pp) collisions was at the centre of a wide experimental effort at the Large Hadron Collider. Thanks to the complementarity of the different experiments, the production of charm hadrons was measured over a wide transverse momentum region and in different rapidity ranges. In this paper, the measurements of the charm hadrons D^0 D 0, D^*+ D ∗ +, D^+ D +, D^+ₒ D s +, ₂^+ Λ c + and ₂^0 Ξ c 0 performed by the ALICE, CMS and LHCb collaborations in pp collisions at the centre-of-mass energy s=5. 02 s = 5. 02 TeV are combined to determine the total charm quark production cross section ₂₂ σ c c ¯ in a novel data-driven approach. The resulting total cc c c ¯ cross section is aligned aligned ₂₂ (pp, 5. 02\, TeV) =&8. 34 0. 22 (stat. ) ^+0. 37-₀. ₃₇ (syst. ) ^+0. 36-₀. ₄₆ (extr. ) ^+0. 68-₀ (c) \, {mb}. aligned aligned σ c c ¯ (pp, 5. 02 TeV) = 8. 34 ± 0. 22 (stat. ) - 0. 37 + 0. 37 (syst. ) - 0. 46 + 0. 36 (extr. ) - 0 + 0. 68 (Ω c) mb. The measured charm hadron distributions and corresponding cross sections are compared with the most recent theoretical calculations.