Open charm production and asymmetry in pNe collisions at √sNN = 68.5 GeV

A measurement of D-0 meson production by the LHCb experiment in its fixed-target configuration is presented. The production of D-0 mesons is studied with a beam of 2.5 TeV protons colliding on a gaseous neon target at rest, corresponding to a nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy of root s(NN) = 68.5 GeV. The sum of the D-0 and (D-0) over bar production cross-section in pNe collisions in the centre-of-mass rapidity range y(star) is an element of[-2.29, 0] is found to be sigma(y star is an element of[-2.29, 0])(D0) = 48.2 +/- 0.3 +/- 4.5 mu b/nucleon where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic. The D-0 - (D-0) over bar production asymmetry is also evaluated and suggests a trend towards negative values at large negative y(star). The considered models do not account precisely for all the features observed in the LHCb data, but theoretical predictions including 1% intrinsic charm and 10% recombination contributions better describe the data than the other models considered.