QCD CORRECTIONS TO HEAVY QUARK PRODUCTION IN HADRON HADRON-COLLISIONS

We investigate the QCD corrections to the cross section and single-particle inclusive differential distributions for p + pBAR --> Q(QBAR) + X where Q and QBAR are heavy quarks. We calculate the order alpha-S corrections to the parton reaction q + qBAR --> Q + QBAR which involves the computation of the virtual gluon contributions and the soft and hard contributions from the reaction q + qBAR --> Q + QBAR + g. The contributions from the channels g + q(qBAR) --> Q + QBAR + q(qBAR) are also calculated. Including the order alpha-S corrections to g + g --> Q + QBAR from our previous paper, we give exact results for the order alpha-S-3 cross sections and single-particle inclusive differential distributions for the production of t and b quarks in ppBAR collisions at energies presently available at the CERN SppBARS and the Fermilab tevatron. Results for future pp colliders are also presented. Finally we compare the results of the simple approximations to the order alpha-S corrections with the exact results.