Predictions for D^*+- Photoproduction at HERA with New Fragmentation Functions from LEP1

Abstract

We present new sets of nonperturbative fragmentation functions for D^*+- mesons, both at leading and next-to-leading order in the MS-bar factorization scheme with five massless quark flavors. They are determined by fitting the latest OPAL and ALEPH data on inclusive D^*+- production in e^+e^- annihilation. We take the charm-quark fragmentation function to be of the form proposed by Peterson et al. and thus obtain new values of the epsilon_c parameter, which are specific for our choice of factorization scheme. With these fragmentation functions, recent data on inclusive D^*+- photoproduction in ep collisions at HERA are reasonably well reproduced.