Measurement of D*(+/-) production and the charm contribution to F-2 in deep inelastic scattering at HERA

The production of D*(+/-)(2010) mesons in deep inelastic scattering has been measured in the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 37 pb(-1). The decay channels D*(+) --> D(0)pi(+) (+ c.c.), with D-0 --> K(-)pi(+) or D-0 --> K(-)pi(-)pi(+)pi(+), have been used to identify the D mesons. The e(+)p cross section for inclusive D*(+/-) production with 1 < Q(2) < 600 GeV2 and 0.02 < y < 0.7 is 8.31+/-0.31(stat.)(+0.30)(-0.50) (syst.) nb in the kinematic region 1.5 < pT(D*(+/-)) < 15GeV and \eta(D*(+/-))\ < 1.5. Differential cross sections are consistent with a next-to-leading-order perturbative-QCD calculation when using charm-fragmentation models which take into account the interaction of the charm quark with the proton remnant. The observed cross section is extrapolated to the full kinematic region in pr(D*(+/-)) and eta(D*(+/-)) in order to determine the charm contribution, F-2(c (c) over bar)(x,Q(2)), to the proton structllre function. The ratio F-2(c (c) over bar)/F-2 rises from similar or equal to 10% at Q(2) similar or equal to 1.8 GeV2 to similar or equal to 30% at Q(2) similar or equal to 130 GeV2 for x values in the rarlge 10(-4) to 10(-3). RI De Pasquale, Salvatore/B-9165-2008; Wing, Matthew/C-2169-2008; Bashkirov, Vladimir/A-4818-2008; Doyle, Anthony/C-5889-2009; Gladilin, Leonid/B-5226-2011; Golubkov, Yury/E-1643-2012