The yield of J/ψ and ψ’ vector-meson states has been measured for 800-GeV protons incident on deuterium, carbon, calcium, iron, and tungsten targets. A depletion of the yield per nucleon from heavy nuclei is observed for both J/ψ and ψ’ production. This depletion exhibits a strong dependence on xF and pt. Within experimental errors the depletion is the same for the J/ψ and the ψ’.
We present the xF and pT differential cross sections of J/ψ and ψ′, respectively, in the ranges −0.05<xF<0.25 and pT<3.5 GeV/c. The data samples are constituted by about 12 000 J/ψ and 200 ψ′ produced in proton-silicon interactions at 800 GeV/c and decaying into opposite sign muons. The xF and pT distributions are compared with recent results from experiments E789 at the same energy and to leading order QCD predictions using the MRS D0 parametrization for the parton structure function. The measured shapes of the differential cross sections, except for the dσ/dxF at small xF, agree very well with the prediction, even though their value is quite a bit larger than the prediction. We also present the cosθ differential cross section of the J/ψ which indicates unpolarized production in contrast with color octet models predictions.
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