Hadronic production ofS-wave andP-wave charmedbmesons via heavy quark fragmentation

At hadron colliders the dominant production mechanism of (b¯c) mesons with large transverse momentum is due to parton fragmentation. We compute the rates and transverse momentum spectra for production of S-wave and P-wave (b¯c) mesons at the Fermilab Tevatron via the direct fragmentation of the bottom antiquark as well as the Altarelli-Parisi-induced gluon fragmentation. Since all the radially and orbitally excited (b¯c) mesons below the BD flavor threshold will cascade into the pseudoscalar ground state ${\mathit{B}}_{\mathit{c}}$ through electromagnetic and/or hadronic transitions, they all contribute to the inclusive production of ${\mathit{B}}_{\mathit{c}}$. The contributions of the excited S-wave and P-wave states to the inclusive production of ${\mathit{B}}_{\mathit{c}}$ are 58 and 23 %, respectively, and, hence, significant. © 1996 The American Physical Society.