The dominant production mechanism for ${ \bar b} c$ bound states in high energy processes is the production of a high energy ${ \bar b}$ or $c$ quark, followed by its fragmentation into the ${ \bar b} c$ state. We calculate the fragmentation functions for the production of the S-wave states $B_c$ and $B_c^*$ to leading order in the QCD coupling constant. The fragmentation probabilities for ${ \bar b} \rightarrow B_c$ and ${ \bar b} \rightarrow B_c^*$ are approximately $2.2 \times 10^{ -4}$ and $3.1 \times 10^{ -4}$, while those for $c \rightarrow B_c$ and $c \rightarrow B_c^*$ are smaller by almost two orders of magnitude.
Categories: hep-ph