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O(αs2) contributions to charm production in charged-current deep-inelastic lepton-hadron scattering

1997; Elsevier BV; Volume: 500; Issue: 1-3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/s0550-3213(97)00327-1

1873-1562

M. Buza, W.L. van Neerven,

Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions

The most important part of the order $\alpha_s^2$ corrections to the charm component of the charged-current structure functions $F_2(x,Q^2)$ and $F_3(x,Q^2)$ have been calculated. This calculation is based on the asymptotic form of the heavy-quark coefficient functions corresponding to the higher order corrections to the W-boson-gluon fusion process. These coefficient functions which are in principle only valid for $Q^2 \gg m^2$ can be also used to estimate the order $\alpha_s^2$ contributions at lower $Q^2$ values provided $x < 0.1$. It turns out that the above corrections are appreciable in the large $Q^2$-region and they explain the discrepancy found for the structure functions between the fixed-flavour scheme (FFS) and the variable-flavour-number scheme (VFNS). These corrections also hamper the extraction of the strange-quark density from the data obtained for the charged-current and the electromagnetic-current processes.