Using the ARGUS detector at the DORIS II storage ring at DESY, we have observed a charmed meson of mass (2455±3±5) MeV/c2, decaying to D + π − . The natural width of this state is determined to be (15 +13+5 −10−10 ) MeV c 2 . The fragmentation function is hard, as expected for a leading charmed particle from nonresonant e + e − annihilation. Analysis of the decay angular distribution supports the hypothesis that the observed state is an L =1 excited charmed meson with spin-parity 2 + .
Corrected to zero momentum using fragmentation function of Peterson et al., PR D29 (83) 105.
Data read from graph.