Аннотация
Abstract Charm production in deep inelastic ep scattering was measured with the ZEUS detector using an integrated luminosity of 354 pb−1. Charm quarks were identified by reconstructing D ± mesons in the D ± → K ∓π±π± decay channel. Lifetime information was used to reduce combinatorial background substantially. Differential cross sections were measured in the kinematic region 5 < Q 2 < 1000 GeV2, 0.02 < y < 0.7, 1.5 < p T (D ±) < 15 GeV and |η(D ±)| < 1.6, where Q 2 is the photon virtuality, y is the inelasticity, and p T (D ±) and η(D ±) are the transverse momentum and the pseudorapidity of the D ± meson, respectively. Next-to-leading-order QCD predictions are compared to the data. The charm contribution, $ F_2^{{c\overline{c}}} $ , to the proton structure-function F 2 was extracted.