Study of inclusive J/ψ production in two-photon collisions at LEP II with the DELPHI detector

Inclusive J/psi production in photon-photon collisions has been observed at LEP II beam energies. A clear signal from the reaction gammagamma --> J/psi + X is seen. The number of observed N(J/psi --> mu(+)mu(-)) events is 36+/-7 for an integrated luminosity of 617 pb(-1), yielding a cross-section of sigma(J/psi + X) = 45+/-9(stat) +/- 17(syst) pb. Based on a study of the event shapes of different types of gammagamma processes in the PYTHIA program, we conclude that (74+/-22) % of the observed J/psi events are due to 'resolved' photons, the dominant contribution of which is most probably due to the gluon content of the photon. (C) 2003 Published by Elsevier B.V.