Measurement of D*+- Cross Sections and the Charm Contribution to the Structure Function of the Proton in Deep Inelastic Scattering at HERA

TL;DR

This paper reports measurements of D*+- meson production cross sections in deep inelastic scattering at HERA, providing insights into charm quark contributions to the proton's structure function across various kinematic ranges.

Contribution

It presents new measurements of D*+- production cross sections and their extrapolation to determine the charm contribution to the proton structure function in deep inelastic scattering.

Findings

Measured D*+- production cross sections in specified Q^2 and y ranges.

Extrapolated cross sections to full kinematic region.

Quantified charm quark contribution to proton structure function.

Abstract

We present measurements on D*+- production cross sections in deep inelastic e+p scattering with 1<Q^2<600 GeV^2 and 0.02<y<0.7 in two restricted kinematic regions in p_t(D*) and eta(D*). The decay channels D*+ -> D0 pi+ with subsequent decay D0 -> K- pi+ or D0 -> K- pi+ pi+ pi- (+c.c) are used. The cross sections are extrapolated to the full kinematic region to determine the charm contribution to the proton structure function.