Eur. Phys. J. C (2007) 52: 531-542
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-007-0427-z

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

Measurement of D⁰, D⁺, D_s ⁺ and D^*+ production in fixed target 920 GeV proton–nucleus collisions

¹ NIKHEF, 1009 DB, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
² Department ECM, Faculty of Physics, University of Barcelona, 08028, Barcelona, Spain
³ Institute for High Energy Physics, Beijing, 100039, P.R. China
⁴ Institute of Engineering Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, P.R. China
⁵ Institut für Physik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 12489, Berlin, Germany
⁶ Dipartimento di Fisica dell’ Università di Bologna and INFN Sezione di Bologna, 40126, Bologna, Italy
⁷ Fondazione Giuseppe Occhialini, 61034, Fossombrone(Pesaro Urbino), Italy
⁸ Department of Physics, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, 45221, USA
⁹ LIP Coimbra, 3004-516, Coimbra, Portugal
¹⁰ Niels Bohr Institutet, 2100, Copenhagen, Denmark
¹¹ Institut für Physik, Universität Dortmund, 44221, Dortmund, Germany
¹² Joint Institute for Nuclear Research Dubna, 141980, Dubna, Moscow region, Russia
¹³ DESY, 22603, Hamburg, Germany
¹⁴ Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, 69117, Heidelberg, Germany
¹⁵ Physikalisches Institut, Universität Heidelberg, 69120, Heidelberg, Germany
¹⁶ Department of Physics, University of Houston, Houston, TX, 77204, USA
¹⁷ Institute for Nuclear Research, Ukrainian Academy of Science, 03680, Kiev, Ukraine
¹⁸ J. Stefan Institute, 1001, Ljubljana, Slovenia
¹⁹ University of Ljubljana, 1001, Ljubljana, Slovenia
²⁰ University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90024, USA
²¹ Lehrstuhl für Informatik V, Universität Mannheim, 68131, Mannheim, Germany
²² University of Maribor, 2000, Maribor, Slovenia
²³ Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics, 117218, Moscow, Russia
²⁴ Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, Werner-Heisenberg-Institut, 80805, München, Germany
²⁵ Dept. of Physics, University of Oslo, 0316, Oslo, Norway
²⁶ Fachbereich Physik, Universität Rostock, 18051, Rostock, Germany
²⁷ Fachbereich Physik, Universität Siegen, 57068, Siegen, Germany
²⁸ Institute for Nuclear Research, INRNE-BAS, Sofia, Bulgaria
²⁹ Universiteit Utrecht/NIKHEF, 3584 CB, Utrecht, The Netherlands
³⁰ DESY, 15738, Zeuthen, Germany
³¹ Physik-Institut, Universität Zürich, 8057, Zürich, Switzerland
³² Sezione di Bologna, Dipartimento di Energetica dell’ Università di Firenze and INFN, Bologna, Italy
³³ P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute, 117924, Moscow B-333, Russia
³⁴ Moscow Physical Engineering Institute, 115409, Moscow, Russia
³⁵ Moscow State University, 119992, Moscow, Russia
³⁶ Institute for High Energy Physics, Protvino, Russia
³⁷ High Energy Physics Institute, 380086, Tbilisi, Georgia

^* e-mail: peter.krizan@ijs.si

Received: 10 August 2007
Published online: 5 October 2007

Abstract

The inclusive production cross sections of the charmed mesons D⁰,D⁺,D_s ⁺ and D^*+ have been measured in interactions of 920 GeV protons on C, Ti, and W targets with the HERA-B detector at the HERA storage ring. Differential cross sections as a function of transverse momentum and Feynman’s x variable are given for the central rapidity region and for transverse momenta up to p_T=3.5 GeV/c. The atomic mass number dependence and the leading to non-leading particle production asymmetries are presented as well.