InclusiveB-meson production at the LHC in the general-mass variable-flavor-number scheme

We calculate the next-to-leading-order cross section for the inclusive production of B mesons in $pp$ collisions in the general-mass variable-flavor-number scheme, an approach that takes into account the finite mass of the b quarks. We use realistic evolved nonperturbative fragmentation functions obtained from fits to e⁺e^- data and compare our results for the transverse-momentum and rapidity distributions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV with recent data from the CMS Collaboration at the CERN LHC. We find good agreement, in particular, at large values of pT.