Measurements of $D^{0}$ and $D^{*}$ Production in $p$ + $p$ Collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 200 GeV

Abstract

We report measurements of charmed-hadron ($D^{0}$, $D^{*}$) production cross
sections at mid-rapidity in $p$ + $p$ collisions at a center-of-mass energy of
200 GeV by the STAR experiment. Charmed hadrons were reconstructed via the
hadronic decays $D^{0}\rightarrow K^{-}\pi^{+}$, $D^{*+}\rightarrow
D^{0}\pi^{+}\rightarrow K^{-}\pi^{+}\pi^{+}$ and their charge conjugates,
covering the $p_T$ range of 0.6$-$2.0 GeV/$c$ and 2.0$-$6.0 GeV/$c$ for $D^{0}$
and $D^{*+}$, respectively. From this analysis, the charm-pair production cross
section at mid-rapidity is $d\sigma/dy|_{y=0}^{c\bar{c}}$ = 170 $\pm$ 45
(stat.) $^{+38}_{-59}$ (sys.) $\mu$b. The extracted charm-pair cross section is
compared to perturbative QCD calculations. The transverse momentum differential
cross section is found to be consistent with the upper bound of a Fixed-Order
Next-to-Leading Logarithm calculation.