Study of the properties of muons produced in the decays of charmed particles

An experiment is described in which charmed particles produced in collisions of high energy neutrons (--330GeV) on Helium-Neon nucleons were observed inside a streamer chamber. The primary focus is on the properties of muons generated in the decays of the charmed particles. The average charm branching ratio into electrons has been measured to be 8%. The authors employed a muon trigger which enhanced the charm content of the data sample by a factor of 40. The authors measured the momentum and charge of each trigger muon with two steel toroidal magnets. A sample of 23 charm candidates with a background of 5.68 events was observed. From these events the authors conclude that D anti D production is dominant over associated production of Λ/sub c/ + anti D and that the D's (c anti q) are produced centrally in p-N collisions. The measured momentum and transverse momentum spectra are consistent with D anti D production. Furthermore, the results are consistent with the standard model of charm decay which assumes μ-e universality. The average charm lifetime was measured to be (6 +/- 1) x 10-13sec