Francesco Giovanni Celiberto, Francesca Lonigro
We investigate the inclusive hadroproduction of pseudoscalar heavy quarkonia, η c and η b mesons, in high-energy proton collisions. Our framework is based on the single-parton collinear fragmentation within a variable-flavor number scheme, tailored to describe the moderate to large transverse momentum regime. To this end, we construct a new set of collinear fragmentation functions, denoted as , which evolve via standard Dokshitzer-Gribov-Lipatov-Altarelli-Parisi equations with a consistent treatment of flavor thresholds. Initial conditions for all parton-induced channels are computed using next-to-leading-order (NLO) nonrelativistic QCD. We perform our analysis within the next-to-leading logarithmic / NLO + hybrid factorization framework, employing the numerical interface together with the symbolic engine. These tools allow us to deliver predictions for high-energy observables sensitive to quarkonium final states at the 13 TeV LHC. To the best of our knowledge, the sets represent the first-ever release of collinear fragmentation functions for heavy quarkonia that consistently include all partonic channels within collinear factorization.