HEAVY QUARK PHOTOPRODUCTION IN THE SEMIHARD APPROACH AT HERA AND BEYOND

Processes of heavy quark photoproduction at HERA energies and beyond are investigated using the semihard ($k_{\bot}$ factorization) approach. Virtuality and longitudinal polarization of gluons in the photon - gluon subprocess as well as the saturation effects in the gluon distribution function at small $x$ have been taken into account. The total cross sections, rapidity and $p_{\bot}$ distributions of the charm and beauty quark photoproduction have been calculated. The results are compared with ZEUS experimental data for charm photoproduction cross section.