Study of charm production in neutrino interactions

Abstract

The CHORUS experiment was designed to search for ν μ → ν τ oscillation by detecting the decay topology of the τ in charged current (CC) ν τ events. The CHORUS detector was exposed to the Wide Band Neutrino Beam of the CERN SPS during the years 1994–1997. About 10 6 ν μ CC interactions were collected in the nuclear emulsion target. Up to now about 140,000 ν μ CC events have been located and analyzed. The speed of the automated emulsion scanning systems increases each year. With the present performance of these systems, it has become possible to perform large volume scanning. All tracks belonging to an interaction vertex can be recognized and precisely measured. This technique not only can be applied to the search for neutrino oscillation but also can be used for the recognition of events where charmed particles are produced. Results obtained from the analysis of a sub-sample of the data on the production rate in ν μ CC interactions of neutral charmed mesons ( D 0) and charmed baryons ( Λ c +) are presented here.