J/psi Inclusive Production in nu N Neutral-Current Deep-Inelastic Scattering

Abstract

We calculate the cross section of J/psi inclusive production in neutrino-nucleon deep-inelastic scattering via the weak neutral current within the factorization formalism of nonrelativistic quantum chromodynamics. Besides J/psi single production via the Z-gluon fusion mechanism, we also consider J/psi plus hadron-jet associated production. We take into account both direct production and feed-down from directly-produced heavier charmonia. We present theoretical predictions for the J/psi transverse-momentum and rapidity distributions, which can be measured in the CHORUS and NOMAD experiments at CERN, including conservative error estimates. In order to interpret a recent CHORUS measurement of the total cross section, we also estimate the contribution due to J/psi prompt production via diffractive processes using the vector-meson dominance model.

Comments: 34 pages (Latex), 5 figures (Postscript); significantly extended to include feed-down and diffractive contributions and nuclear corrections; accepted for publication in Nucl. Phys. B