A study of charm production in the strong interactions using a prompt muon trigger

This chapter reports on an attempt to trigger a prompt muon from the semileptonic decay of one of the charm particles (C or C-) in order to examine the decay of the associated state with open geometry and minimum bias. The detector is a two-arm spectrometer located in the M1-West beam line at Fermilab. Trigger muons are selected and identified in an upward arm consisting of a tungsten-and-steel absorber and polarized iron (the return yoke of the 40D48 spectrometer magnet). The trigger for experiment consists of an incident beam particle (unaccompanied by halo muons) in coincidence with at least one detected particle which penetrates through the length of the muon arm. The fraction of the triggers which are from prompt muons was determined by removing various amounts of absorber from the muon arm to increase the decay component. Although a detailed model calculation has not yet been performed, the μe data are strongly suggestive of central production for charm