Pion and Kaon Production of Charm and Charm-Strange States

We propose an experiment to measure the properties of hadronic charm production using the Tagged Photon Spectrometer facility. We shall measure the flavor, x and A dependence of this process at the same time and in a single apparatus. In addition to collecting several times more charm than any completed or proposed hadronic experiment, we expect to have a sample of F mesons as much as two orders of magnitude more than published efforts. High statistiCs lifetime measurements of several charm states are expected. The experiment is proposed for the next running period. The experiment will record equal numbers of {pi} and K induced events using a fast transverse energy trigger and a modified data acquisition system capable of recording more than 300 events per second. The transverse energy trigger used in E691, providing an enrichment of about 3 over a simple interaction trigger while keeping 80% of the charmed particles, will be used. It will provide at least 300 million events to be examined for possible writing to tape. A new data acquisition system includes 'Level 3' filtering capability before writing events to tape. The experiment requires a minimal hardware extension to an existing and proven facility and will take advantage of the significant software developments already focussed on the charm photoproduction experiment. The eXisting forward spectrometer and silicon microstrip detectors (SMDs) are augmented by a beam DISC Cerenkov counter, a new beam transition radiation detector (TRD) and 6 new planes of beam defining SMDs. The new equipment is associated with (1) defining and identifying the incident charged beam and (2) increasing the recordable event rate by a factor of at least 3 relative to E691. The proponents of this new experiment consist of a subset of the E691 collaboration with new collaborators having multiparticle spectrometer experience. We anticipate additional collaborators joining us if approval is granted