D* Production in Deep Inelastic Scattering at HERA

This paper presents measurements of D^{*\pm} production in deep inelastic scattering from collisions between 27.5 GeV positrons and 820 GeV protons. The data have been taken with the ZEUS detector at HERA. The decay channel $D^{*+}\to (D^0 \to K^- \pi^+) \pi^+$ (+ c.c.) has been used in the study. The $e^+p$ cross section for inclusive D^{*\pm} production with $5<Q^2<100 GeV^2$ and $y<0.7$ is 5.3 \pms 1.0 \pms 0.8 nb in the kinematic region {$1.3<p_T(D^{*\pm})<9.0$ GeV and $| \eta(D^{*\pm}) |<1.5$}. Differential cross sections as functions of p_T(D^{*\pm}), $\eta(D^{*\pm}), W$ and $Q^2$ are compared with next-to-leading order QCD calculations based on the photon-gluon fusion production mechanism. After an extrapolation of the cross section to the full kinematic region in p_T(D^{*\pm}) and $\eta$(D^{*\pm}), the charm contribution $F_2^{c\bar{c}}(x,Q^2)$ to the proton structure function is determined for Bjorken $x$ between 2 $\cdot$ 10$^{-4}$ and 5 $\cdot$ 10$^{-3}$.Comment: 17 pages including 4 figure

Observation of Scaling Violations in Scaled Momentum Distributions at HERA

Charged particle production has been measured in deep inelastic scattering (DIS) events over a large range of $x$ and $Q^2$ using the ZEUS detector. The evolution of the scaled momentum, $x_p$, with $Q^2,$ in the range 10 to 1280 $GeV^2$, has been investigated in the current fragmentation region of the Breit frame. The results show clear evidence, in a single experiment, for scaling violations in scaled momenta as a function of $Q^2$.Comment: 21 pages including 4 figures, to be published in Physics Letters B. Two references adde

Observation of hard scattering in photoproduction events with a large rapidity gap at HERA

Events with a large rapidity gap and total transverse energy greater than 5 GeV have been observed in quasi-real photoproduction at HERA with the ZEUS detector. The distribution of these events as a function of the $\gamma p$ centre of mass energy is consistent with diffractive scattering. For total transverse energies above 12 GeV, the hadronic final states show predominantly a two-jet structure with each jet having a transverse energy greater than 4 GeV. For the two-jet events, little energy flow is found outside the jets. This observation is consistent with the hard scattering of a quasi-real photon with a colourless object in the proton.Comment: 19 pages, latex, 4 figures appended as uuencoded fil

Observation of Events with an Energetic Forward Neutron in Deep Inelastic Scattering at HERA

In deep inelastic neutral current scattering of positrons and protons at the center of mass energy of 300 GeV, we observe, with the ZEUS detector, events with a high energy neutron produced at very small scattering angles with respect to the proton direction. The events constitute a fixed fraction of the deep inelastic, neutral current event sample independent of Bjorken x and Q2 in the range 3 · 10-4 \u3c xBJ \u3c 6 · 10-3 and 10 \u3c Q2 \u3c 100 GeV2

Measurement of diffractive photoproduction of vector mesons at large momentum transfer at HERA

Elastic and proton-dissociative photoproduction of rho /sup 0/, phi and J/ psi vector mesons ( gamma p to Vp, gamma p to VN, respectively) have been measured in e/sup +/p interactions at HERA up to -t=3 GeV/sup 2/, where t is the four-momentum transfer squared at the photon-vector-meson vertex. The analysis is based on a data sample in which photoproduction reactions were tagged by detection of the scattered positron in a special-purpose calorimeter. This limits the photon virtuality, Q/sup 2/, to values less than 0.01 GeV/sup 2/, and selects a gamma p average center-of-mass energy of [W]=94 GeV. Results for the differential cross sections, d sigma /dt, for rho /sup 0/, phi and J/ psi mesons are presented and compared to the results of recent QCD calculations. Results are also presented for the t-dependence of the pion-pair invariant-mass distribution in the rho /sup 0/ mass region and of the spin-density matrix elements determined from the decay-angle distributions. The Pomeron trajectory has been derived from measurements of the W dependence of the elastic differential cross sections d sigma /dt for both rho /sup 0/ and phi mesons

Measurement of dijet production in neutral current deep inelastic scattering at high Q(2) and determination of alpha(s)

Dijet production has been studied in neutral current deep inelastic e(+)p scattering for 470 lt Q(2) lt 20000 GeV2 with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 38.4 pb(-1). Dijet differential cross sections are presented in a kinematic region where both theoretical and experimental uncertainties are small. Next-to-leading-order (NLO) QCD calculations describe the measured differential cross sections well. A QCD analysis of the measured dijet fraction as a function of Q(2) allows both a precise determination of alpha (s)(M-z) and a test of the energy-scale dependence of the strong coupling constant. A detailed analysis provides an improved estimate of the uncertainties of the NLO QCD cross sections arising from the parton distribution functions of the proton. The value of cu,(Mz), as determined from the QCD fit, is alpha (s)(M-z) = 0.1166 +/- 0.0019(stat.)(- 0.0033)(+0.0024)(exp.)(-0.0044)(+0.0057)(th.)