Charm production in pion-nucleon interactions

Hadronic production of charm has been investigated using a π- beam incident on a nucleon target at momenta of 200 and 250 GeV/c. At 200 GeV/c in the total cross section for the production of charged D* mesons, [sigma(D*+) + sigma(D*-)], was measured to be 8.4 +- 2.8 μb. At 250 GeV/c the result was 0.8 +- 2.9 μb. The average of these values, 4.6 +- 2.0 μb, corresponds to a total charm production cross section of 8.8 +- 3.8 μb. Results are also reported on the production of states that decay into #betta# - π pairs