Production of b and anti b quarks by photon-gluon fusion in heavy-ion collisions

Electromagnetic Higgs production in heavy-ion collisions at LHC or SSC has been proposed to detect Higgs particles in the mass range mZ<mH<2mW. We consider the fusion of a photon and a gluon into b and anti b quarks as background to the banti b decay of these Higgs particles. We multiplied the cross section for the elementary process γg→banti b with the photon distribution in the Weizsaecker-Williams approximation and the gluon distribution inside the nucleus. The photon-gluon fusion turns out to be much stronger than the banti b photoproduction background and hides this higgs signal completely. Furthermore we discuss the possibility to utilize the photon-gluon fusion into banti b and canti c in order to determine the gluon distribution of the nucleon inside the nucleus, e.g., at RHIC. (orig.)