Charm Production in Pion-Nucleon Interactions.

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