Measurement of charm production at central rapidity in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s)=2.76 TeV

Abstract

Thept-differentialproductioncrosssectionsoftheprompt(Bfeed-downsubtracted)charmedmesonsD0,D+,andD*+intherapidityrange

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?smallerthan0.5,andfortransversemomentum?pt?largerthan1andsmallerthan12GeV/c,weremeasuredinproton-protoncollisionsatsqrt(s)=2.76TeVwiththeALICEdetectorattheLargeHadronCollider.TheanalysisexploitedthehadronicdecaysD0?intoK?pi+,D+?into?K?pi+pi+,D*+?into?D0pi+,andtheirchargeconjugates,andwasperformedonaLint=1.1nb?1eventsamplecollectedin2011withaminimum-biastrigger.Thetotalcharmproductioncrosssectionatsqrt(s)=2.76TeVandat7TeVwasevaluatedbyextrapolatingtothefullphasespacethept-differentialproductioncrosssectionsatsqrt(s)=2.76TeVandourpreviousmeasurementsatsqrt(s)=7TeV.Theresultswerecomparedtoexistingmeasurementsandtoperturbative-QCDcalculations.Thefractionofcd?Dmesonsproducedinavectorstatewasalsodetermined.