Prompt J/ψ production in charged-current deep-inelastic scattering Original Research Article

We calculate the cross section of J/ψ inclusive production in lepton–nucleon deep-inelastic scattering via the weak charged current within the factorization formalism of nonrelativistic quantum chromodynamics. The hadronic system produced in association with the J/ψ meson can be of light-quark origin or contain charm. We take into account both direct production and feed-down from directly-produced heavier charmonia. We provide the cross sections of all contributing partonic subprocesses in analytic form. We present theoretical predictions for the J/ψ transverse-momentum and rapidity distributions, which can be measured in current neutrino–nucleon scattering experiments at CERN and Fermilab, and possibly at the future electron–proton collider THERA at DESY. We find the cross section to be at the edge of observability at DESY HERA.