The production of D*+-(2010) mesons in ep scattering in the range of exchanged photon virtuality 0.05 < Q^2 < 0.7 GeV^2 has been measured with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 82 pb-1. The decay channels D*+ -> D0 pi+ with D0 -> K- pi+ and corresponding antiparticle decay were used to identify D* mesons and the ZEUS beampipe calorimeter was used to identify the scattered electron. Differential D* cross sections as functions of Q^2, inelasticity, y, transverse momentum of the D* meson, p_T(D*), and pseudorapidity of the D* meson, eta(D*), have been measured in the kinematic region 0.02 < y < 0.85, 1.5 < p_T(D*) < 9.0 GeV and |eta(D*)| < 1.5. The measured differential cross sections are in agreement with two different NLO QCD calculations. The cross sections are also compared to previous ZEUS measurements in the photoproduction and DIS regimes.
Total cross section measurement.. The second DSYS error is due to the uncertainty in the branching ratio.
Measured differential cross section as a function of Q**2.
Measured differential cross section as a function of Y.
With the H1 detector at the ep collider HERA, D* meson production cross sections have been measured in deep inelastic scattering with four-momentum transfers Q^2>2 GeV2 and in photoproduction at energies around W(gamma p)~ 88 GeV and 194 GeV. Next-to-Leading Order QCD calculations are found to describe the differential cross sections within theoretical and experimental uncertainties. Using these calculations, the NLO gluon momentum distribution in the proton, x_g g(x_g), has been extracted in the momentum fraction range 7.5x10^{-4}< x_g <4x10^{-2} at average scales mu^2 =25 to 50 GeV2. The gluon momentum fraction x_g has been obtained from the measured kinematics of the scattered electron and the D* meson in the final state. The results compare well with the gluon distribution obtained from the analysis of scaling violations of the proton structure function F_2.
Total cross section for DIS D*+- production in the specified kinemtaic range.
DIS cross section as a function of the transverse D* momentum in the laboratory frame.
DIS cross section as a function of the transverse D* momentum in the hadronic centre-of-mass frame.