Eur. Phys. J. C (1998) 1: 123-130
https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01245802

Open charm contribution to dilepton spectra produced in nuclear collisions at SPS energies

¹ GSI, Postfach 110552, D-64220, Darmstadt, Germany
² Universität Heidelberg, D-69120, Heidelberg, Germany
³ CERN, CH-1211, Geneva, Switzerland

Received: 9 June 1997
Revised: 6 August 1997
Published online: 27 February 2005

Abstract

Measurements of open charm hadro-production from CERN and Fermilab experiments are reviewed, with particular emphasis on the absolute cross sections and on their A and √s dependences. Differentialp _T andx _F cross sections calculated with thePythia event generator are found to be in reasonable agreement with recent data. The calculations are scaled to nucleus-nucleus collisions and the expected lepton pair yield is deduced. The charm contribution to the low mass dilepton continuum observed by the CERES experiment is found to be negligible. In particular, it is shown that the observed low mass dilepton excess in S-Au collisions cannot be explained by charm enhancement.