Diffractive hadronic production of D mesons

A search for charmed D mesons was made with a 217 GeV π- beam on a liquid hydrogen target. The Chicago Cyclotron Spectrometer at Fermilab was used to analyze the hadronic decay of a D meson in coincidence with a prompt muon and a recoil proton. A total of 50 +- 12 D+- events were observed with equal numbers in the two channels K+-π-+π-+. Some of the cuts selected diffractive events. When these cuts were removed the signal remained the same, although the background was greatly increased. The Feynman X and angular distributions were consistent with diffractive production. A diffractive model yielded a cross section of (6 to 10) +- 4 μb