Production of particles containing charmed quarks in hadronic collisions

Abstract

The ability to obtain the correct cross section for production of the new 3.1-GeV resonance at Brookhaven National Laboratory using the natural analog of the Drell-Yan annihilation mechanism leads us to explore further implications of this approach. We present in detail the longitudinal- and transverse-momentum dependence of the cross section, as well as its dependence upon beam energy. We point out correlations among final-state multiplicity, longitudinal momentum of the resonance, and resonance mass peculiar to the parton-model annihilation mechanism. We also examine the alterations which are expected upon employing a $\overline{p}$ beam. Finally, we obtain cross sections for charmed meson and baryon production. ${\overline{D}}^{0*}$ and $D^{-*}$ mesons should have particularly large production cross sections.