Evidence for Diffractive Charm Production in nu_mu Fe and nubar_mu Fe Scattering at the Tevatron

TL;DR

This paper provides experimental evidence for diffractive charm production in neutrino-iron scattering at the Tevatron, confirming some Standard Model processes while finding no evidence for J/psi production.

Contribution

It reports the first evidence of diffractive charm production in neutrino-iron interactions at Tevatron energies, using Fermilab's neutrino beam and detector.

Findings

Evidence for diffractive charm production in neutrino-iron scattering.

Observation of neutrino trident reactions consistent with Standard Model.

No evidence found for J/psi production via diffractive or deep inelastic scattering.

Abstract

We present evidence for the diffractive processes nu_mu Fe -> mu^- D_s^+ (D_s^*+) Fe and nubar_mu Fe -> mu^+ D_s^- (D_s^*-) Fe using the Fermilab SSQT neutrino beam and the Lab E neutrino detector. We observe the neutrino trident reactions nu_mu Fe -> nu_mu mu^- mu^+ Fe and nubar_mu Fe -> nubar_mu mu^+ mu^- Fe at rates consistent with Standard Model expectations. We see no evidence for neutral-current production of J/psi via either diffractive or deep inelastic scattering mechanisms.