Measurement of D± production in deep inelastic ep scattering with the ZEUS detector at HERA

الأصل · EN

Charm production in deep inelastic ep scattering was measured with the ZEUS detector using an integrated luminosity of 354 pb⁻¹. Charm quarks were identified by reconstructing D⁺ mesons in the D⁺ -> K⁻ pi⁺ pi⁺ decay channel. Lifetime information was used to reduce combinatorial background substantially. Differential cross sections were measured in the kinematic region 5 < Q² < 1000 GeV², 0.02 < y < 0.7, 1.5 < pₜ(D⁺) < 15 GeV and |eta(D⁺)| < 1.6, where Q² is the photon virtuality, y is the inelasticity, and pₜ(D⁺) and eta(D⁺) are the transverse momentum and the pseudorapidity of the D⁺ meson, respectively. Next-to-leading-order QCD predictions are compared to the data. The charm contribution, F₂cc, to the proton structure-function F₂ was extracted.