Pseudoscalar heavy-quarkonium hadroproduction from nonrelativistic fragmentation at NLL/NLO$^+$

Abstract: We investigate the inclusive hadroproduction of pseudoscalar heavy quarkonia, $\eta_c$ and $\eta_b$ mesons, in high-energy proton collisions. Our framework bases 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 NRFF1.0, which evolve via standard DGLAP equations with a consistent treatment of flavor thresholds. Initial conditions for all parton-induced channels are computed using next-to-leading-order nonrelativistic QCD. We perform our analysis within the NLL/NLO$^+$ hybrid factorization framework, employing the JETHAD numerical interface together with the symJETHAD symbolic engine. These tools allow us to deliver predictions for high-energy observables sensitive to quarkonium final states at 13 TeV LHC. To the best of our knowledge, the NRFF1.0 sets represent the first-ever release of collinear fragmentation functions for heavy quarkonia that consistently includes all partonic channels within collinear factorization.