Measurement of D∗± meson production and F2c in deep-inelastic scattering at HERA

The inclusive production of D∗±(2010) mesons in deep-inelastic scattering is studied with the H1 detector at HERA. In the kinematic region 11.5 GeV and |ηD∗|<1.5. Single and double differential inclusive D∗± meson cross sections are compared to perturbative QCD calculations in two different evolution schemes. The charm contribution to the proton structure, F2c(x,Q2), is determined by extrapolating the visible charm cross section to the full phase space. This contribution is found to rise from about 10% at Q2=1.5 GeV2 to more than 25% at Q2=60 GeV2 corresponding to x values ranging from 5×10−5 to 3×10−3.