Charm production by weak neutral currents

We discuss quantitatively the production of charm in $\text{v}\text{N and}\text{v}\text{N}$ neutral current interactions, and the anomalous lepton events that follow from semi-leptonic charm decay. Diagonal neutral currents, in the Weinberg-Salam model and similar models, predict associated charm production with small cross sections: e.g. $\text{σ(v}\text{N}\text{→ vcc}{}^{\mathrm{?}}\text{X}\text{)/σ(v}\text{N}\text{→ μ}{}^{\mathrm{?}}\text{X}\text{) ? 10}{}^{\mathrm{?2}}$ at high energy. The meagre data on vN → ve⁺X are consistent with a rate of this order. Non-diagonal neutral currents, if present, could give larger cross sections via valence p → c transitions. It should be possible to distinguish diagonal from non-diagonal contributions by their x- or u-dependences, where u = x(1 ? y). We calculate the expected energy distributions of the leptons in characteristic vN → v?⁺X and vN → v?⁺?^?X charm decay events using simple models, and discuss some practical problems in neutral current measurements.