Charm production in deep inelastic ep scattering was measured with the ZEUS detector using an integrated luminosity of 354 pb^{-1}. Charm quarks were identified by reconstructing D^{+} mesons in the D^{+} -> K^{-} pi^{+} pi^{+} decay channel. Lifetime information was used to reduce combinatorial background substantially. Differential cross sections were measured in the kinematic region 5 < Q^{2} < 1000 GeV^{2}, 0.02 < y < 0.7, 1.5 < p_{T}(D^{+}) < 15 GeV and |eta(D^{+})| < 1.6, where Q^{2} is the photon virtuality, y is the inelasticity, and p_{T}(D^{+}) and eta(D^{+}) are the transverse momentum and the pseudorapidity of the D^{+} meson, respectively. Next-to-leading-order QCD predictions are compared to the data. The charm contribution, F_{2}^{cc}, to the proton structure-function F_{2} was extracted.
The bin-averaged differential cross section as a function of Q^2. The (sys) error is the experimental systematic uncertainty, excluding the luminosity and branching ratio uncertainties.
The bin-averaged differential cross section as a function of Y. The (sys) error is the experimental systematic uncertainty, excluding the luminosity and branching ratio uncertainties.
The bin-averaged differential cross section as a function of PT. The (sys) error is the experimental systematic uncertainty, excluding the luminosity and branching ratio uncertainties.
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