Measurement of D^{+} and Lambda_{c}^{+} production in deep inelastic scattering at HERA

TL;DR

This paper reports measurements of D^{+} and Lambda_{c}^{+} production in deep inelastic scattering at HERA, comparing results with QCD predictions and extracting charm quark hadronization fractions.

Contribution

It provides new experimental data on charm hadron production in DIS and extends sensitivity into low transverse momentum regions.

Findings

Measured cross sections for D^{+} and Lambda_{c}^{+} production.

Compared experimental results with NLO QCD predictions.

Extracted the charm quark hadronization fraction into Lambda_{c}^{+}.

Abstract

Charm production in deep inelastic scattering has been measured with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 120 pb^{-1}. The hadronic decay channels D^{+} -> K^{0}_{S} pi^{+}, Lambda_{c}^{+} -> p K^{0}_{S} and Lambda_{c}^{+} -> Lambda pi^{+}, and their charge conjugates, were reconstructed. The presence of a neutral strange hadron in the final state reduces the combinatorial background and extends the measured sensitivity into the low transverse momentum region. The kinematic range is 0 < p_{T}(D^{+}, Lambda_{c}^{+}) < 10 GeV, |eta(D^{+}, Lambda_{c}^{+})| < 1.6, 1.5 < Q^{2} < 1000 GeV^{2} and 0.02 < y < 0.7. Inclusive and differential cross sections for the production of D^{+} mesons are compared to next-to-leading-order QCD predictions. The fraction of c quarks hadronising into Lambda_{c}^{+} baryons is extracted.