DETERMINATION OF THE STRANGE QUARK CONTENT OF THE NUCLEON FROM A NEXT-TO-LEADING-ORDER QCD ANALYSIS OF NEUTRINO CHARM PRODUCTION

We present the first next-to-leading-order QCD analysis of neutrino ch arm production, using a sample of 6090 nu(mu)- and <(nu)over bar>(mu)- induced opposite-sign dimuon events observed in the CCFR detector at t he Fermilab Tevatron. We find that the nucleon strange quark content i s suppressed with respect to the non-strange sea quarks by a factor ka ppa = 0.477(-0.053)(+0.063), where the error includes statistical, sys tematic and QCD scale uncertainties. In contrast to previous leading o rder analyses, we find that the strange sea x-dependence is similar to that of the non-strange sea, and that the measured charm quark mass, m(c) = 1.70 +/- 0.19 GeV/c(2), is larger and consistent with that dete rmined in other processes. Further analysis finds that the difference in x-distributions between xs(x) and x (s) over bar(x) is small. A mea surement of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix element \V-cd\ = 0.23 2(-0.020)(+0.018) is also presented.