Next-to-leading order QCD corrections to Higgs production at a future lepton-proton collider

Crucial information on the coupling of the Higgs boson to bottom quarks is expected from Higgs production in association with a forward tagging jet at a future high-energy lepton-proton collider. In order to control the theoretical uncertainties of the signal process, the impact of radiative corrections has to be quantified. We present the full next-to-leading order QCD corrections to e- p -> e- j H and e- p -> nu_e j H in the form of a flexible Monte-Carlo program allowing for the calculation of cross sections and kinematic distributions within experimentally feasible selection cuts. QCD corrections are found to be very small for cross sections, while the shape distortion of distributions can be as large as 20%. Residual scale uncertainties at next-to-leading order are at the permille level.Comment: 15 pages, 14 figure

Hard exclusive photoproduction of Φ\Phi and J/ΨJ/\Psi mesons

We present predictions for differential cross sections for the reaction $\gamma p \to \Phi p$ and give an outlook to which extent our calculations may be generalized to the photoproduction of $J/\Psi$ mesons. Our results are obtained within perturbative QCD treating the proton as a quark-diquark system.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, uses Elsevier style espcrc1.st

Longitudinally Polarized Photoproduction of Inclusive Hadrons at Fixed-Target Experiments

We present a detailed phenomenological study of spin-dependent single-inclusive high-p_T hadron photoproduction with particular emphasis on the kinematics relevant for the Compass and Hermes fixed-target experiments. We carefully examine the theoretical uncertainties associated with the only moderate transverse momenta accessible in such measurements and analyze the sensitivity of the relevant spin asymmetries to the gluon polarization in the nucleon as well as to the completely unknown parton content of circularly polarized photons.Comment: 12 pages, 14 figures; final version to appear in EPJC; comparison to E155 data and references adde