Observation of D-pi Production Correlations in 500 GeV pi- - N Interactions

TL;DR

This paper investigates charge correlations between charm mesons and nearby pions in high-energy pion-nucleon interactions, revealing significant effects from fragmentation, resonances, and beam charge.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of D-pi charge correlations in 500 GeV pi- - N interactions using a large dataset from Fermilab.

Findings

Significant charge correlations observed

Correlations depend on Dpi mass difference and Feynman x

Results suggest multiple sources including fragmentation and resonant decays

Abstract

We study the charge correlations between charm mesons produced in 500 GeV pi- - N interactions and the charged pions produced closest to them in phase space. With 110,000 fully reconstructed D mesons from experiment E791 at Fermilab, the correlations are studied as functions of the Dpi - D mass difference and of Feynman x. We observe significant correlations which appear to originate from a combination of sources including fragmentation dynamics, resonant decays, and charge of the beam.