Seventy-one events containing charmed-particle decays have been observed in an experiment using the SLAC Hybrid Facility exposed to a backward-scattered photon beam. Several improvements were made to the apparatus since the previous experiment on charm photoproduction. Results for the charmed-meson lifetimes are consistent with the published results from the previous experiment and the two data samples have been combined yielding a total sample of 136 charm events. After imposing rigorous cuts, 50 neutral, 48 charged, and 2 charged/neutral ambiguous decays remain. From these, the charmed-meson lifetimes are measured to be &=(8.6±1.3−0.3+0 .7)×10−13 sec, &=(6.1±0.9±0.3)×10 −13 sec, and their ratio &=1.4±0.3− 0.1+0.2. The total charm cross section at a photon energy of 20 GeV has been measured to be (62±8−10+15) nb. There is evidence for both DD¯X and D¯Λc+X production with σD¯Λc+X/σcharm=(71± 11±6)%.
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