Analytic calculation of prompt photon plus associated heavy flavor at next-to-leading order in QCD

Contributions through second order, O(αₛ²), 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 αₛ². We find important corrections to the lowest order, O(αₛ), subprocess cg→γc. We demonstrate to what extent data from p+p̄→γ+c+X may serve to measure the charm quark density in the nucleon.