MEASUREMENT OF THE STRANGE SEA DISTRIBUTION USING NEUTRINO CHARM PRODUCTION

A high-statistics study by the Columbia-Chicago-Fermilab-Rochester Collaboration of opposite-sign dimuon events induced by neutrino-nucleon scattering at the Fermilab Tevatron is presented. A sample of 5044 nu(mu) and 1062 v(mu)BAR induced mu-/+mu+/- events with P(mu1) greater-than-or-equal-to 9 GeV/c, P(mu2) greater-than-or-equal-to 5 GeV/c, 30 less-than-or-equal-to E(nu) less-than-or-equal-to 600 GeV, and [Q2]=22.2 GeV2/c2 is observed. The data support the slow-rescaling model of charm production with a value of m(c)=1.31+/-0.24 GeV/c2. The first measurement of the Q2 dependence of the nucleon strange quark distribution xs(x) is presented. The data yield the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix element \V(cd)\=0.209+/-0.012 and the nucleon fractional strangeness content eta(s)=0.064(-0.007)+0.008.