The nuclear dependence for 800 GeV/c proton production of neutron D mesons has been measured near xF=0 in Experiment 789 at Fermilab. D mesons from beryllium and gold targets were detected with a pair spectrometer and a silicon vertex detector via their decay D→Kπ. No nuclear dependence is found, with a measured α=1.02±0.03±0.02. The measured differential cross section, dσ/dxF, for neutral-D-meson production at 〈xF〉=0.031 is 58±3±7 μb/nucleon. The integrated cross section obtained by extrapolation of the measured cross section to all xF is 17.7±0.9±3.4 μb/nucleon and is consistent with previous measurements.
We present results from the initial run of Fermilab experiment E706. The data include incident π− and p beams at 500 GeV/c on Be and Cu targets, and span the kinematic ranges of transverse momentum and rapidity of 3.5≤pT≤10 GeV/c and −0.7≤yc.m.≤0.7, respectively. We have measured cross sections for π0 and direct-photon production, as well as the ηπ0 production ratio. From the data on Be and Cu, we have extracted the nuclear dependence of π0 production, parametrized as Aα. The cross sections are compared with next-to-leading-log QCD predictions for different choices of the QCD momentum scales and several sets of parton distribution functions.
Forum