Dear Peter, Here are first English comments on the draft of May 3rd. regards, Alan ------------ p2, par 1: "also provided the" -> "also provides a" "More and accurate data" -> "More data" (a matter of taste: the "accurate" to me implies that Refs. 4-10 are inaccurate) "..to charmonium cross sections" (should be plural) par 2: at the end I suggest "...and D*+->D0pi+ -> K-pi+pi+. Throughout this paper, charge-conjugate modes are included unless noted otherwise." par 3: no comma after "results" (because the clause following is not an independent clause). "with other experiments" -> "with other measurements" (a matter of taste) par 4: "e-p" -> "$e$-$p$" "disturb the other experiments measuring e-p collisions" -> "disturb the stability of the proton beam" "will be given here" -> "is given here" par 5: "64 silicon strip detectors" -> "Sixty-four silicon strip detectors" (do not begin a sentence with a number or symbol) "8" -> "eight" (the "rule" is to spell out numbers of 10 or less, but this is not always adhered to in scientific writing) "Roman pots" should have a reference "their positions" (plural) "within 10-15 mm" -> "to be 10-15 mm" or "to be in the range 10-15 mm" p3, par 1: "Tm" -> "T-m" "and remaining six" -> "and the remaining six" I would put "[17]" and "[18]" inside the parentheses "paramatrized" -> "parametrized" or "parameterized" (use a spell-checker) par 2: "the electromagnetic calorimeter" -> "an electromagnetic calorimeter" (since this is the first mention of it; this also applies to the RICH) "and the muon chambers" -> "and muon chambers" "NTP" - is this "STP"? "2 m of radiation path" why not quote the number of radiation lengths? "the kaon misidentification probability" -> "a kaon misidentification probability" "the pion misidentification" -> "a pion misidentification probability" need "the" before "Cherenkov threshold" need a comma after "10 GeV/c" par 3: "PMT" seems undefined "which were separated" -> "that were separated" but best would be just "separated" p4, par 2: "with only a single operational target wire" -> "with a single target wire" (taste - these extra words add no useful content) "was sensitive to \epsilon_trigger > 97\%" -> "had an efficiency \epsilon_trigger = 0.97\pm 0.xx" (a central value and error seem necessary because you use this value in the next sentence to calculate luminosity) mu=0.17 does not correspond to 10% of events containing \geq 1 interaction the last sentence "The high data acquisition rate...within two weeks." is awkward; the reader wonders why we didn't run longer. Why not say simply "The data acquisition rate was about 1 kHz, and the bulk of the data was recorded during a two-week minimum bias run." par 2: "is by more than" -> "is more than" "if strict data selection criteria are not applied." seems unnecessary "combined with a good" -> "combined with good" "provides a possibility" -> "allows us" no comma after "table 2" p5, par 1: "transverse to the wire" -> "transverse to the wire orientation" (a matter of taste) par 2: need a comma after "of D mesons" I would merge this paragraph with the next one (avoid paragraphs with a single sentence) par 3: "based on the information" -> "based on information" "L_K" "L_e" "L_mu" "L_pi" seem undefined (?) "which we shall denote as slow pions, pi_slow." -> "which tend to have low momentum and thus are denoted as \pi_slow." (a matter of taste) par 4: need "form" after "combined to" "\pm 0.5 GeV" I would add more significant digits "considered in the further analysis." -> "retained for further analysis." need "the" after "of the angle \theta_phi between" "were combined from the D0 candidates" -> "were reconstructed from D0 candidates" "and the slow pions" -> "and slow pion candidates" par 7: "the one" -> "the vertex" (a suggestion to make clear it's not "the event") need a comma after "i.e." I would add "momentum" after "D meson candidate" "a" is not needed before "possible bias" par 8: "the" is not needed before "background" "could be reduced" -> "was reduced" "by the following three requirements" -> "by the following requirements" ("three" is redundant, as the requirements are numbered) p6, par 1: "did not come" -> "do not come" "originated" -> "originates" (stay in present tense or change "is detached" to "was detached" - but this will sound awkward) 1st bullet: "the primary interaction point given by" can be dropped, no? 2nd bullet: "the closest to the particle is chosen" -> "that closest to the particle trajectory was chosen" 3rd bullet: is "impact parameter" defined? add "with respect" after "D meson candidate" "for the three body decays" -> "for three-body decays" par 2: "is the cut on their product" -> "is a cut on their product" par 3: "life time" -> "lifetime" (several places) "signal significance" is this defined? For the last sentence I suggest "Here, the proper lifetime t is in units of the D mean lifetime, and the offset t_0 is determined in an optimization." par 4: "need a comma before "with S being the number of" par 5: "from the real data side bands" -> "from data sidebands" "was excluded from side bands" -> "was excluded from the lower sideband" "reconstructed in the mass difference" -> "reconstructed via the mass difference" "rather than in" -> "rather than via" or "rather than using" last par: "channels" -> "candidates" for the last sentence I suggest "If multiple candidates remained (i.e., due to multiple pi_slow candidates), the D* candidate with the highest vertex probability was kept." p7, par 2: "figure 2, figure 3, figure 4" -> "Figs. 2-4" par 3, I suggest: "For D+ and D+_s candidates, the background is fitted by an exponential function. The background for D0 candidates is more complicated and consists of a combinatorial part fitted with an exponential, and a contribution from partially reconstructed charm decays. This latter background is visible in the mass range below the D0 peak. We take the shape of this background from Monte Carlo simulation of ccbar events after applying all selection criteria." (I prefer present tense, but past tense is also ok) par 4: move "also" to come right before "seen", i.e., "is also seen" "left from the Ds+ peak" -> "left of the Ds+ peak" par 8, par 1: "with normalization..." -> "with its normalization as an additional free parameter, and its mean value fixed to that extracted from the D+ -> K-pi+pi+" invariant mass distribution." par 2: combine with previous paragraph. "in the D*+ reconstruction" -> "for D*+ candidates" need a comma before "with a and b as free parameters." par 3: "are by about 30%" -> "are about 30%" par 4: "The signals in subsamples...were fitted" -> "The yields for various subsamples...were obtained" (a matter of taste) par 5: "We checked that" -> "We confirmed that" "acceptance-corrected" (add hyphen) "and that the fitted lifetimes are in agreement with the PDG values" seems redundant with the next sentence and can be dropped. "for all three mesons" seems redundant with the rest of the sentence and can be dropped. "PDG values" should have a citation to PDG 2006 or the 2007 web update. p9, par 1: "The consistency of the D+->phi pi+ signal ...was tested"-> "The D+->phi pi+ signal yield..was checked" (a matter of taste) The 4.2 accounts for different branching fractions, acceptances, and reconstruction efficiencies, yes? p10, par 1: "We took" -> "We take" "is taken into account as a systematic error" -> "are taken into account as systematic errors" (my taste) "is given as input" -> "is input" par 3: need a comma after Eq. (3) need a comma after "for a particular target" add "is" after "and Br" "was extracted" -> "were extracted" p11, par 1: "we assumed a linear" -> "we assume a linear" par 3: "table 6, table 7, table 8" -> "Tables 6-8" That's all for now. I'll wait for the next version to correct pages 12-18.