Inclusive D

This thesis describes inclusive production of D^0 and | D^0 mesons in e^{+} e^ {-} annihilation at a center-of-mass energy of 29 GeV (= 2E_{rm beam}) as observed in a data sample with an integrated luminosity of approximately 77 pb^{ -1} collected by the TPC/2gamma Detector Facility at PEP, a collider ring at Stanford. The D^0 differential cross section has been determined as a function of the scaled energy z = E/E_{rm beam} , and is compared with other measurements. The measurement is consistent with a measurement at the same center-of-mass energy published previously by the HRS collaboration. A comparison of the present measurement with a measurement by the CLEO collaboration at 10.55 GeV shows an approximate scaling behavior of the so-called scaling cross section. This observed scaling behavior lends support to the quark-parton model as applied to the fragmentation of charmed quarks; the scaling cross section depends only on the scaled D^0 energy z, not on the center-of-mass energy according to the quark-parton model. An unresolved discrepancy is seen in the highest z bins between the present measurement and the measurement by the CLEO collaboration. The present measurement has been fit to several fragmentation models; a good fit has been obtained to the Peterson, Anderson and Bowler models.