Charm Photo- and Electroproduction at High Energies.

The differential and total cross sections for the photoproduction of vector D[sup *] mesons and for their production in deep-inelastic interactions at the HERA collider are estimated on the basis of a model motivated by perturbative calculations within QCD. The proposed model makes it possible to take into account higher twists in the meson transverse momentum at p[sub T] ∼ m[sub c] and to reproduce correctly the dominance of c-quark fragmentation for p[sub T] » m[sub c]. The possibility of the hadronization of an octet c&qmacr; state into a meson is considered, whereby good agreement with experimental data is obtained both for the case of D[sup *]-meson photoproduction and for the case of D[sup *]-meson formation in a deep-inelastic process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]