Threshold open charm production in nucleon-nucleon collisions

The associative charm particles production in nucleon-nucleon collisions N + N↦Λ_c(Σ_c) + ˉD + N, is described in a general way and the spin and isospin structure of the corresponding matrix elements are derived. Using an analogy with strange-particle (ΛK) production, the D-meson exchange model is considered in detail. Estimations of the energy behavior of the threshold cross-sections show a large dependence on the form of the phenomenological hadron form factors and indicate that, at threshold, the cross-section is three orders of magnitude smaller than for strange-particle production. Received: 18 October 2002 / Accepted: 5 December 2002 / Published online: 18 March 2003 RID="a" ID="a"Permanent address: National Science Center KFTI, 310108 Kharkov, Ukraine. RID="b" ID="b"e-mail: etomasi@cea.fr Communicated by V.V. Anisovich