Determination of the total c\bar c production cross section in 340 GeV/c \Sigma^--nucleus interactions

The production of charmed particles by 340 GeV/c momentum was studied in the hyperon beam experiment WA89 at the CERN-SPS, using the -spectrometer. In two data-taking periods in 1993 and 1994 an integrated luminosity of on copper and carbon targets was recorded. From the reconstruction of charm particle decays in 10 decay channels production cross sections for D, , and were determined in the region . Assuming an dependence of the cross section on the nucleon number, we calculate a total production cross section of per nucleon. The last term is an upper limit on the unknown contribution from charmed-strange baryon production. Received: 3 September 1999 / Published online: 3 February 2000