Determination of the total $c\bar{c}$ production cross section in 340 ${\mathrm{GeV}/c}$ ${\mathrm{\Sigma}^-}$-nucleus interactions

The WA89 Collaboration:     M.I. Adamovich - et al.

doi:doi:10.1007/s100520000318

2023 Impact factor 4.2

Particles and Fields

Eur. Phys. J. C 13, 247-254
DOI 10.1007/s100520000318

Determination of the total $c\bar{c}$ production cross section
in 340 GeV/c $\mathrm{\Sigma^-}$ -nucleus interactions

The WA89 Collaboration

M.I. Adamovich ⁸ - Yu.A. Alexandrov ⁸ ^a - D. Barberis ³ - M. Beck ⁵ - C. Bérat ⁴ - W. Beusch ² - M. Boss ⁶ - S. Brons ⁵ ^b - W. Brückner ⁵ - M. Buénerd ⁴ - C. Busch ⁶ - C. Büscher ⁵ - F. Charignon ⁴ - J. Chauvin ⁴ - E.A. Chudakov ⁶ ^c - U. Dersch ⁵ - F. Dropmann ⁵ - J. Engelfried ⁶ ^d - F. Faller ⁶ ^e - A. Fournier ⁴ - S.G. Gerassimov ⁵ ⁸ ^f - M. Godbersen ⁵ - P. Grafström ² - Th. Haller ⁵ - M. Heidrich ⁵ - E. Hubbard ⁵ - R.B. Hurst ³ - K. Königsmann ⁵ ^g - I. Konorov ⁵ ⁸ - N. Keller ⁶ - K. Martens ⁶ ^a - Ph. Martin ⁴ - S. Masciocchi ⁵ ^b - R. Michaels ⁵ - U. Müller ⁷ - H. Neeb ⁵ - D. Newbold ¹ - C. Newsom ^a - S. Paul ⁵ - J. Pochodzalla ⁵ - I. Potashnikova ⁵ - B. Povh ⁵ - R.D. Ransome ^a - Z. Ren ⁵ - M. Rey-Campagnolle ⁴ ^b - G. Rosner ⁷ ^c - L. Rossi ³ - H. Rudolph ⁷ - C. Scheel ^d - L. Schmitt ⁷ - H.-W. Siebert ⁶ - A. Simon ⁶ - V.J. Smith ¹ ^a - O. Thilmann ⁶ - A. Trombini ⁵ - E. Vesin ⁴ - B. Volkemer ⁷ - K. Vorwalter ⁵ - Th. Walcher ⁷ - G. Wälder ⁶ - R. Werding ⁵ - E. Wittmann ⁵ - M.V. Zavertyaev ⁸ ^a

¹ University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
² CERN, 1211 Genève 23, Switzerland
³ Genoa University/INFN, Dipt. di Fisica, 16146 Genova, Italy
⁴ Grenoble ISN, 38026 Grenoble, France
⁵ Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, Postfach 103980, 69029 Heidelberg, Germany
⁶ Universität Heidelberg, Physikalisches Institut, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany ^a
⁷ Universität Mainz, Institut für Kernphysik, 55099 Mainz, Germany
⁸ Moscow Lebedev Physics Institute, 117924, Moscow, Russia

Received: 3 September 1999 / Published online: 3 February 2000 - © Springer-Verlag 2000

Abstract
The production of charmed particles by $340\,\mathrm{GeV}/c$ momentum $\Sigma^-$ was studied in the hyperon beam experiment WA89 at the CERN-SPS, using the $\Omega$ -spectrometer. In two data-taking periods in 1993 and 1994 an integrated luminosity of $1600\,\mu\mbox{b}^{-1}$ on copper and carbon targets was recorded. From the reconstruction of $930 \pm 90$ charm particle decays in 10 decay channels production cross sections for D, ${\mathrm{\overline D}}$ , D_s^- and $\mathrm{\Lambda_c^+}$ were determined in the region x_F>0. Assuming an A¹ dependence of the cross section on the nucleon number, we calculate a total $c\bar{c}$ production cross section of $\sigma_{\mathrm{c}\mathrm{\overline{c}}}(x_F > 0) = 5.3\, \pm\, 0.4\,\, (stat)\,\, \pm\, 1.0\,\, (syst)\,\, +1.0\,\,(\mathrm{\Xi_c})\, \mu\mbox{b}$ per nucleon. The last term is an upper limit on the unknown contribution from charmed-strange baryon production.