D Meson Production In Ee Annihilation 3 7 To 7 0 Gev Total Cross Section Branching Ratio PDF Download

The production of D mesons in ee− annihilation for the center-of-mass energy range 3.7 to 7.0 GeV was studied with the MARK I magnetic detector at SPEAR. A resonance was observed in the total cross section for hadron production in ee− annihilation at an energy just above the threshold for charm production. This resonance, which is named psi'', has a mass of 3772 +- 6 MeV/c2, a total width of 28 +- 5 MeV/c2, a partial width to electron pairs of 345 +- 85 eV/c2, and decays almost exclusively into D anti D pairs. The psi'' provides a rich source of background-free and kinematically well defined D mesons for study. From produced in the decay of the psi'' the masses of the D° and D/sup +/ mesons were determined to be 1863.3 +- 0.9 MeV/c2 and 1868.3 +- 0.9 MeV/c2 respectively. Also the branching fractions for D° decay to K−.pi./sup +/, anti K°.pi./sup +/.pi.− and K−.pi./sup +/.pi.−.pi./sup +/ were determined to be (2.2 +- 0.6)%, (4.0 +- 1.3)%, and (3.2 +- 1.1)% and the branching fractions for D/sup +/ decay to anti K°.pi./sup +/ and K−.pi./sup +/.pi./sup +/ to be (1.5 +- 0.60)% and (3.9 +- 1.0)%. The average number of kaons per D decay was found to be 0.52 +- 0.14 K°'s and 0.42 +- 0.12 K/sup +/'s. The rate for inclusive production of D mesons at center-of-mass energies above the psi'' was measured; it is found that it can account for most, if not all, of the observed increase in the total hadronic cross-section for center-of-mass energies above 4 GeV. The inclusive momentum and energy spectra for D's were measured at the highest available center-of-mass energy (7 GeV). The energy spectra are rapidly decreasing functions of energy with a slope similar to the slope of the charged pion spectrum at the same center-of-mass energy. This behavior suggests that the fragmentation function of the charmed quark into charmed mesons is a decreasing function of the scaling variable z = 2E/sub D//E/sub CM/. 81 references.