D∗ production in deep inelastic scattering at HERA

This paper presents measurements of D*+/- production in deep inelastic scattering from collisions between 27.5GeV positrons and 820GeV protons. The data have been taken with the ZEUS detector at HERA. The decay channel D*+ --> (D-0 --> K- pi(+))pi(+) (+c.c.) has been used in the study. The e(+)p cross section for inclusive D*+/- production with 5 < Q(2) < 100GeV(2) and y < 0.7 is 5.3 +/- 1.0 +/- 0.8 nb in the kinematic region 1.3 < p(T)(D*+/-) < 9.0GeV and \eta(D*+/-)\ < 1.5. Differential cross sections as functions of p(T)(D*+/-), eta(D*+/-), W and Q(2) are compared with next-to-leading order QCD calculations based on the photon-gluon fusion production mechanism. After an extrapolation of the cross section to the full kinematic region in p(T)(D*+/-) and eta(D*+/-), the charm contribution F-2(c (c) over bar) (x,Q(2)) to the proton structure function ifs determined for Bjorken x between 2.10(-4) and 5.10(-3). (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.