PRODUCTION OF CHARMED PARTICLES IN 250 GEV MU+-IRON INTERACTIONS

Dimuon and trimuon events produced by the interaction of 250 GeV muons in an iron target have been studied and are shown to originate predominantly from charm production. The data are used to measure the contribution of charm to the nucleon structure function F 2 . The cross sections for real photoproduction ( Q 2 =0) of charm in the current fragmentation region are derived as a function of photon energy and are found to be ∼0.6% of the total, hadronic photoproduction cross section in this energy range. The measured cross sections are found to be well represented by the photon-gluon fusion model. The charmed quark fragmentation function is obtained by using this model to fit the measured decay muon energy distribution and is found to be well represented by exp(1.6±1.6) Z . The data are used to study the momentum distribution of the gluons in the nucleon. An upper limit of 1.4% (90% confidence level) is set on the branching ratio D→ μν and a model-dependent upper limit on the branching ratio F→ μν is derived.