The total charm cross section.pdf

a r X i v : 0 7 0 9 .2 5 3 1 v 1 [ h e p - p h ] 1 7 S e p 2 0 0 7 EPJ manuscript No. (will be inserted by the editor) The total charm cross section R. Vogt12 a 1 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA 2 Department of Physics, UC Davis, Davis, CA, USA Abstract. We assess the theoretical uncertainties on the total charm cross section. We discuss the importance of the quark mass, the scale choice and the parton densities on the estimate of the uncertainty. We conclude that due to the small charm quark mass, which amplifies the effect of varying the other parameters in the calculation, the uncertainty on the total charm cross section is difficult to quantify. 1 Introduction Open charm measurements date back to the late 1970s when D and D mesons were first de- tected, completing the picture of the fourth quark begun when the J/ψ was detected in pBe and e+e? interactions. The charm quark was postulated to have a mass between 1.2 and 1.8 GeV, within the regime of perturbative quantum chromodynamics (pQCD). Because of its rather large mass relative to the u, d and s quarks, it is possible to calculate a total cc cross section, not the case for lighter flavors. Charm hadrons are usually detected two ways. The reconstruction of decays to charged hadrons such as D0 → K?π+ (3.8%) and D+ → K?π+π+ (9.1%) gives the full momentum of the initial D meson, yielding the best direct measurement. Charm can also be detected indirectly via semi-leptonic decays to leptons such as D → Klνl although the momentum of the parent D meson remains unknown. Early measurements of prompt leptons in beam dump experiments assumed that the density of the dump was high enough to absorb semi-leptonic decays of non-charm hadrons, leaving only the charm compo- nent. At modern colliders, it is not possible to use beam dumps to measure charm from leptons but, at sufficiently high pT , electrons from charm emerge from hadronic cocktails [1,2]. Although D mesons alone are often used