Cross Section for b -Jet Production in p̅p Collisions at √ s = 1.8 TeV

Bottom quark production in pbar-p collisions at sqrt(s)=1.8 TeV is studied with 5 inverse picobarns of data collected in 1995 by the DO detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. The differential production cross section for b jets in the central rapidity region (|y(b)| < 1) as a function of jet transverse energy is extracted from a muon-tagged jet sample. Within experimental and theoretical uncertainties, DO results are found to be higher than, but compatible with, next-to-leading-order QCD predictions.