THE CHARM CONTENT OF W+1 JET EVENTS AS A PROBE OF THE STRANGE QUARK DISTRIBUTION FUNCTION

We investigate the prospects for measuring the strange quark distribut ion function of the proton in associated W plus charm quark production at the Tevatron. The W + c quark signal produced by strange quark-glu on fusion, sg --> W-c and sgBAR --> W + cBAR, is approximately 5% of t he inclusive W + 1 jet cross section for jets with a transverse moment um P(T) (j) > 10 GeV. We study the sensitivity of the W plus charm qua rk cross section to the parametrization of the strange quark distribut ion function, and evaluate the various background processes.