Measurement of the forward-backward asymmetry in the production of $B^{\pm}$ mesons in $p\bar{p}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 1.96 TeV

We present a measurement of the forward-backward asymmetry in the production of $B^{\pm}$ mesons, $A_{\rm FB}(B^{\pm})$, using $B^{\pm} \rightarrow J/\psi K^{\pm}$ decays in 10.4 ${\rm fb}^{-1}$ of $p\bar{p}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 1.96$ TeV collected by the D0 experiment during Run II of the Tevatron collider. A non-zero asymmetry would indicate a preference for a particular flavor, i.e., $b$ quark or $\bar{b}$ anti-quark, to be produced in the direction of the proton beam. We extract $A_{\rm FB}(B^{\pm})$ from a maximum likelihood fit to the difference between forward- and backward-produced $B^{\pm}$ mesons. We measure an asymmetry consistent with zero: $A_{\rm FB}(B^{\pm})$ = [$-$0.24 $\pm$ 0.41 (stat) $\pm$ 0.19 (syst)]%.