Contribution of the hadronic component of the photon to charm production at the HERA accelerator

The contribution to the cross section for D*-meson photoproduction at the H ERA accelerator from the scattering of the virtual c (c) over bar vector me sons in the content of the photon on a proton is estimated within the vecto r-dominance model. It is shown that this mechanism plays an important role throughout the range of D*-meson transverse momenta available at the HERA f acility and that its inclusion significantly improves a theoretical descrip tion of the experimental differential distributions. (C) 2001 MAIK "Nauka/I nterperiodica".