Charmed and bottom flavoured particle production in hadronic interactions

Abstract

In this review emphasis is put on hadroproduction of open heavy flavours and on results from fixed target experiments and hadron colliders. It should be complementary to several recent reviews which concentrate on c and b bound states and results from e+e- colliders. The atomic number dependence, the xF and PT dependence and the energy dependence of charmed particle production are discussed. Where appropriate a comparison is made with heavy flavour production in photon and neutrino interactions and in e+e- collisions. It is shown that, contrary to a belief which was widely held until recently, the QCD parton model is not incompatible with present data. Higher-order corrections and interactions between the heavy quarks produced and the quarks in the parent hadron are likely to be important.