Analytic calculation of prompt photon plus associated heavy flavor at next-to-leading order in QCD

Contributions through second order, O(\alpha ^2_s), in perturbative quantum chromodynamics are calculated analytically for inclusive associated production of a prompt photon and a charm quark at large values of transverse momentum in high energy hadron-hadron collisions. Seven partonic subprocesses contribute at order \alpha^2_s. We find important corrections to the lowest order, O(\alpha_s), subprocess c g \rightarrow \gamma c. We demonstrate to what extent data from p +\bar{p}\rightarrow \gamma + c + X may serve to measure the charm quark density in the nucleon