Measurements of D0 and D * production in p+p collisions at √s=200GeV

Abstract

We report measurements of charmed-hadron (D0,D *) production cross sections at midrapidity in p+p collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 200 GeV by the STAR experiment. Charmed hadrons were reconstructed via the hadronic decays D0→K -π +, D *+→D0π +→K -π +π + and their charge conjugates, covering the p T range of 0.6-2.0 and 2.0-6.0GeV/c for D0 and D *+, respectively. From this analysis, the charm-pair production cross section at midrapidity is dσ/dy|y=0cc̄= 170±45(stat)-59+38(sys)μb. The extracted charm-pair cross section is compared to perturbative QCD calculations. The transverse momentum differential cross section is found to be consistent with the upper bound of a fixed-order next-to-leading logarithm calculation. © 2012 American Physical Society.