Measurement of D*(+/-) production in deep inelastic e(+/-)p scattering at DESY HERA

Inclusive production of D*(+/-) (2010) mesons in deep inelastic scattering has been measured with the ZEUS detector at DESY HERA using an integrated luminosity of 81.9 pb-1. The decay channel D*(+)-->D(0)pi(+) with D-0-->K(-)pi(+) and corresponding antiparticle decay were used to identify D-* mesons. Differential D-* cross sections with 1.5parton densities in the proton. The data show sensitivity to the gluon distribution in the proton and are reasonably well described by next-to-leading-order QCD with the ZEUS NLO QCD fit used as the input parton density in the proton. The observed cross section is extrapolated to the full kinematic region in p(T)(D*) and eta(D*) in order to determine the open-charm contribution, F-2(c (c) over bar)(x,Q(2)), to the proton structure function, F-2. Since, at low Q(2), the uncertainties of the data are comparable to those from the QCD fit, the measured differential cross sections in y and Q(2) should be used in future fits to constrain the gluon density.