Inclusive B B -meson production at small pT p T in the general-mass variable-flavor-number scheme

We calculate the cross section for the inclusive production of B mesons in $$pp$$ and pp̄ collisions at next-to-leading order in the general-mass variable-flavor-number scheme and show that a suitable choice of factorization scales leads to a smooth transition to the fixed-flavor-number scheme. Our numerical results are in good agreement with data from the Tevatron and LHC experiments at small and at large transverse momenta.