Charm Production Measurements Using Prompt Muons

Measurements of the hadronic production cross‐section and distributions of charmed particles have been extracted from the measurements of prompt muons produced in 350 GeV pN interactions. The data indicate a charmed particle production cross‐section of $24.6±3.9 μb/nucleon$⁠. The measured energy distributions strongly favor central production over diffractive production, and do not support the hypothesis of a 1% “intrinsic charm” component in the nucleon. In addition, the data give a production ratio of $μ−/μ+ = 1.10±.22$⁠, in good agreement with the ratio of 1 expected from central production of charm.