Determination of the total cc̄ production cross section in 340 GeV/c Σ--nucleus interactions
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The production of charmed particles by 340 GeV/c momentum Σ- was studied in the hyperon beam experiment WA89 at the CERN-SPS, using the Ω-spectrometer. In two data-taking periods in 1993 and 1994 an integrated luminosity of 1600 μb-1 on copper and carbon targets was recorded. From the reconstruction of 930 ± 90 charm particle decays in 10 decay channels production cross sections for D, D̄, Ds- and Λc%2b were determined in the region xF > 0. Assuming an A1 dependence of the cross section on the nucleon number, we calculate a total cc̄ production cross section of σcc̄(xF > 0) = 5.3 ± 0.4 (stat) ± 1.0 (syst) %2b 1.0 (Ξc) μb per nucleon. The last term is an upper limit on the unknown contribution from charmed-strange baryon production.
