D* production in deep inelastic scattering at HERA

Collaboration
May, 1997

Citations per year

199720042011201820240510152025
Abstract:
This paper presents measurements of D^{*\pm} production in deep inelastic scattering from collisions between 27.5 GeV positrons and 820 GeV protons. The data have been taken with the ZEUS detector at HERA. The decay channel D+(D0Kπ+)π+D^{*+}\to (D^0 \to K^- \pi^+) \pi^+ (+ c.c.) has been used in the study. The e+pe^+p cross section for inclusive D^{*\pm} production with 5<Q2<100GeV25<Q^2<100 GeV^2 and y<0.7y<0.7 is 5.3 \pms 1.0 \pms 0.8 nb in the kinematic region {1.3<pT(D±)<9.01.3<p_T(D^{*\pm})<9.0 GeV and η(D±)<1.5| \eta(D^{*\pm}) |<1.5}. Differential cross sections as functions of p_T(D^{*\pm}), η(D±),W\eta(D^{*\pm}), W and Q2Q^2 are compared with next-to-leading order QCD calculations based on the photon-gluon fusion production mechanism. After an extrapolation of the cross section to the full kinematic region in p_T(D^{*\pm}) and η\eta(D^{*\pm}), the charm contribution F2ccˉ(x,Q2)F_2^{c\bar{c}}(x,Q^2) to the proton structure function is determined for Bjorken xx between 2 \cdot 104^{-4} and 5 \cdot 103^{-3}.
Note:
  • 17 pages including 4 figures Report-no: DESY-97-089
  • positron p: colliding beams
  • positron p: deep inelastic scattering
  • quark: charm
  • quark: pair production
  • D*(2010): electroproduction
  • D*(2010): hadronic decay
  • channel cross section
  • differential cross section: transverse momentum
  • rapidity dependence
  • energy dependence