A REANALYSIS OF BRANCHING FRACTIONS OF CHARMED MESONS D(0), D(+) AND D(S)(+)

We combine highly complementary information on branching fractions of charmed mesons D0, D+ and D(s)+ coming from two experiments both yielding double-charm samples. The NA32 experiment provided exclusive branching fractions for channels with at least two charged decay products while a recent Mark III paper provides results on inclusive charm decay properties. The knowledge of channels with K0's in the former is used to recalculate the charged multiplicity distribution in the latter. We obtain [n(ch)] = 2.25 +/- 0.08 for D0, [n(ch)] = 1.96 +/- 0.08 for D+ and [n(ch)] = 2.41 +/- 0.38 for D(s)+. In tum the knowledge of the charged multiplicity improves the overall normalization of exclusive branching fractions. This reanalysis yields model-independent results for charmed mesons. In particular we obtain branching fractions for 16 D(s)+ decay channels including BF(D(s)+ --> phi-pi+) = (4.4(-1.8)+2.3)%.