The production of the $f_{0}(980)$ meson at high energies is not well understood. We investigate two different potential mechanisms for inclusive scalar meson production in the $k_t$-factorization approach: color-singlet gluon-gluon fusion and color evaporation model. The $\gamma^* \gamma^* \to f_0(980)$ form factor(s) can be constraint from the $f_0(980)$ radiative decay width. The $g^* g^* \to f_0(980)$ form factors are obtained by a replacement of $\alpha_{\rm{em}}$ electromagnetic coupling constant by $\alpha_{\rm{s}}$ strong coupling constant and appropriate color factors. The form factors for the two couplings are parametrized with a function motivated by recent results for scalar quarkonia. The differential cross sections are calculated in the $k_t$-factorization approach with modern unintegrated gluon distributions. Unlike for quarkonia it seems rather difficult to describe a preliminary ALICE data for inclusive production of $f_0(980)$ exclusively by the color singlet gluon-gluon fusion mechanism. Two different scenarios for flavour structure of $f_0(980)$ are considered in this context. We consider also mechanism of fusion of quark-antiquark associated with soft gluon emission in a phenomenological color evaporation model (CEM) used sometimes for quarkonium production. Here we use $k_t$-factorization version of CEM to include higher-order contributions. In addition, for comparison we consider also NLO collinear approach with $q \bar{q} q$ and $q \bar{q} g$ color octet partonic final states. Both approaches lead to a similar result. However, very large probabilities are required to describe the preliminary ALICE data. The pomeron-pomeron fusion mechanism is also discussed and results are quantified.

中文翻译：

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在 LHC 上产生 f0(980) 介子：颜色蒸发与颜色-单线态胶子-胶子融合

高能下 $f_{0}(980)$ 介子的产生尚不清楚。我们研究了 $k_t$ 分解方法中包含标量介子产生的两种不同潜在机制：颜色-单线态胶子-胶子融合和颜色蒸发模型。$\gamma^* \gamma^* \to f_0(980)$ 形状因子可以受到 $f_0(980)$ 辐射衰减宽度的约束。$g^* g^* \to f_0(980)$ 形状因子是通过用 $\alpha_{\rm{s}}$ strong 替换 $\alpha_{\rm{em}}$ 电磁耦合常数获得的耦合常数和适当的颜色因素。两个耦合的形状因子通过标量夸克尼亚的最新结果激发的函数进行参数化。微分横截面是在 $k_t$-factorization 方法中使用现代非积分胶子分布计算的。与夸克尼亚不同，似乎很难描述完全通过彩色单线态胶子 - 胶子融合机制生产 $f_0(980)$ 的初步 ALICE 数据。在此上下文中考虑了 $f_0(980)$ 风味结构的两种不同场景。我们还考虑了有时用于夸克生产的现象学颜色蒸发模型 (CEM) 中与软胶子发射相关的夸克-反夸克融合机制。这里我们使用 CEM 的 $k_t$-factorization 版本来包含高阶贡献。此外，为了进行比较，我们还考虑了具有 $q \bar{q} q$ 和 $q \bar{q} g$ 颜色八位字节部分最终状态的 NLO 共线方法。这两种方法都会导致类似的结果。然而，需要非常大的概率来描述初步的 ALICE 数据。