Search for Doubly-Charged Higgs Boson Production at HERA

A search for the single production of doubly-charged Higgs bosons H^{\pm \pm} in ep collisions is presented. The signal is searched for via the Higgs decays into a high mass pair of same charge leptons, one of them being an electron. The analysis uses up to 118 pb^{-1} of ep data collected by the H1 experiment at HERA. No evidence for doubly-charged Higgs production is observed and mass dependent upper limits are derived on the Yukawa couplings h_{el} of the Higgs boson to an electron-lepton pair. Assuming that the doubly-charged Higgs only decays into an electron and a muon via a coupling of electromagnetic strength h_{e \mu} = \sqrt{4 \pi \alpha_{em}} = 0.3, a lower limit of 141 GeV on the H^{\pm\pm} mass is obtained at the 95% confidence level. For a doubly-charged Higgs decaying only into an electron and a tau and a coupling h_{e\tau} = 0.3, masses below 112 GeV are ruled out.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Study of Charm Fragmentation into D^{*\pm} Mesons in Deep-Inelastic Scattering at HERA

The process of charm quark fragmentation is studied using $D^{*\pm}$ meson production in deep-inelastic scattering as measured by the H1 detector at HERA. Two different regions of phase space are investigated defined by the presence or absence of a jet containing the $D^{*\pm}$ meson in the event. The parameters of fragmentation functions are extracted for QCD models based on leading order matrix elements and DGLAP or CCFM evolution of partons together with string fragmentation and particle decays. Additionally, they are determined for a next-to-leading order QCD calculation in the fixed flavour number scheme using the independent fragmentation of charm quarks to $D^{*\pm}$ mesons.Comment: 33 pages, submitted to EPJ

Jet production in ep collisions at high Q(2) and determination of alpha(s)

The production of jets is studied in deep-inelastic e(+/-) p scattering at large negative four momentum transfer squared 150 LT Q(2) LT 15000 GeV2 using HERA data taken in 1999-2007, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 395 pb(-1). Inclusive jet, 2-jet and 3-jet cross sections, normalised to the neutral current deep-inelastic scattering cross sections, are measured as functions of Q(2), jet transverse momentum and proton momentum fraction. The measurements are well described by perturbative QCD calculations at next-to-leading order corrected for hadronisation effects. The strong coupling as determined from these measurement

Search for Contact Interactions in e±p\it e^{\pm}p Collisions at HERA

A search for physics beyond the Standard Model in neutral current deep inelastic scattering at high negative four-momentum transfer squared Q^2 is performed in e^{\pm}p collisions at HERA. The differential cross section ds/dQ^2, measured using the full H1 data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 446 pb^{-1}, is compared to the Standard Model prediction. No significant deviation is observed. Limits on various models predicting new phenomena at high Q^2 are derived. For general four-fermion eeqq contact interaction models, lower limits on the compositeness scale Lambda are set in the range 3.6 TeV to 7.2 TeV. Leptoquarks with masses M_{LQ} and couplings lambda are constrained to M_{LQ}/lambda > 0.41-1.86 TeV and limits on squarks in R-parity violating supersymmetric models are derived. A lower limit on the gravitational scale in (4+n) dimensions of M_{S} > 0.9 TeV is established for low-scale quantum gravity effects in models with large extra dimensions. For the light quark radius an upper bound of R_q< 0.65 10^{-18} m is determined.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures and 5 table

Search for First Generation Leptoquarks in ep\it ep Collisions at HERA

A search for first generation scalar and vector leptoquarks produced in ep collisions is performed by the H1 experiment at HERA. The full H1 data sample is used in the analysis, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 446 pb^-1. No evidence for the production of leptoquarks is observed in final states with a large transverse momentum electron or with large missing transverse momentum, and constraints on leptoquark models are derived. For leptoquark couplings of electromagnetic strength lambda=0.3, first generation leptoquarks with masses up to 800 GeV are excluded at 95% confidence level.Comment: Revised version, accepted by Journal. 18 pages, 5 figures, 1 tabl

Measurement of Leading Neutron Production in Deep-Inelastic Scattering at HERA

The production of leading neutrons, where the neutron carries a large fraction x_L of the incoming proton's longitudinal momentum, is studied in deep-inelastic positron-proton scattering at HERA. The data were taken with the H1 detector in the years 2006 and 2007 and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 122 pb^{-1}. The semi-inclusive cross section is measured in the phase space defined by the photon virtuality 6 < Q^2 < 100 GeV^2, Bjorken scaling variable 1.5x10^{-4} < x < 3x10^{-2}, longitudinal momentum fraction 0.32 < x_L < 0.95 and neutron transverse momentum p_T < 0.2 GeV. The leading neutron structure function, F_2^{LN(3)}(Q^2,x,x_L), and the fraction of deep-inelastic scattering events containing a leading neutron are studied as a function of Q^2, x and x_L. Assuming that the pion exchange mechanism dominates leading neutron production, the data provide constraints on the shape of the pion structure function.Comment: 30 pages, 9 figure