Measurement of Single Electrons and Implications for Charm Production inAu+AuCollisions atsNN=130GeV

Transverse momentum spectra of electrons from $\mathrm{Au}+\mathrm{Au}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=130\mathrm{}\mathrm{GeV}$ have been measured at midrapidity by the PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The spectra show an excess above the background from photon conversions and light hadron decays. The electron signal is consistent with that expected from semileptonic decays of charm. The yield of the electron signal ${\mathrm{dN}}_e/dy$ for $p_T>0.8\mathrm{}\mathrm{GeV}/c$ is $0.025\pm 0.004\left(\mathrm{stat}\right)\pm 0.010\left(\mathrm{syst}\right)$ in central collisions, and the corresponding charm cross section is $380\pm 60\left(\mathrm{stat}\right)\pm 200\left(\mathrm{syst}\right)\mu \mathrm{b}$ per binary nucleon-nucleon collision.