Measurements of total hadronic and inclusive D-star cross sections in electron positron annihilation between 3.87 and 4.5 giga-electron volts

Results are presented on measurements of two inclusive hadron cross sections in electron-positron annihilation at center of mass energies in the resonance region (3.87-4.5 Gev) above open charm threshold. The measurements were made using the Crystal Ball detector in the SPEAR storage ring facility at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. The first result presented is a high statistics measurement of the total hadronic cross section, which displays the center of mass energy behavior of charm production. The second result presents pizero kinetic energy spectra at the psi''(3.772) and energies between 3.87 and 4.5 Gev. D/sup */ production is associated with a low energy peak in the pizero kinetic energy spectrum (below 50 Mev) arising from D/sup */ → π0D cascade decays. The two results are combined to yield the average number of D/sup */ mesons per charm event. This number, approximately 1 between D/sup */D and D/sup */D/sup */ threshold and 1.5-2 at higher energies, places constraints upon models attempting to explain the behavior of the charm cross section in this energy region