Inclusive Measurement of the Charm Contribution to the Structure Function of the Proton

The inclusive measurement of charm production in deep inelastic scattering with the ZEUS detector at HERA is presented in this thesis. In a first step, the existing algorithm from the inclusive secondary vertexing analysis was generalised using the signed impact parameter of jet-associated tracks to extract the heavy quark content of the data sample. In a second step, the algorithm was extended by using the decay vertex in events containing a well-reconstructed secondary vertex, the impact parameter in events not containing a secondary vertex, and a combination of vertexing and tracking information in all other events. The combined algorithm has reduced the relative statistical and systematic uncertainties on the measured double differential cross sections in Q2 and x. The relative statistical error has been reduced by 40 % on average, whilst the systematic uncertainty decreased due to an improved tracking efficiency. In order to extend the kinematic region and further reduce the uncertainty on the extrapolation of the charm contribution, F2cc, to the structure function of the proton the cut on the transverse jet energy has been relaxed from ET > 4.2 GeV to ET > 2.5 GeV. An extrapolation of the visible cross sections to the full kinematic phase space was performed allowing an extraction of F2cc to be made for a well-defined set of points in the x and Q2 plane. A comparison with previous results shows that lowering the cut on the transverse energy has particularly reduced the uncertainty on the extrapolation in the low Q2 and low x region. The present analysis is well described by next-to-leading order QCD predictions generated with the HVQDIS program. At present it is the most precise measurement of charm production cross sections with the ZEUS detector, and will have a significant impact on future combinations of ZEUS and H1 data

Measurement of neutral current e+/-p cross sections at high Bjorken x with the ZEUS detector

The neutral current e+/-p cross section has been measured up to values of Bjorken x of approximately 1 with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 187 inv. pb of e-p and 142 inv. pb of e+p collisions at sqrt(s) = 318GeV. Differential cross sections in x and Q2, the exchanged boson virtuality, are presented for Q2 geq 725GeV2. An improved reconstruction method and greatly increased amount of data allows a finer binning in the high-x region of the neutral current cross section and leads to a measurement with much improved precision compared to a similar earlier analysis. The measurements are compared to Standard Model expectations based on a variety of recent parton distribution functions.Comment: 39 pages, 9 figure

Scaled momentum distributions for K-S(0) and Λ /̄ Λ in DIS at HERA

Scaled momentum distributions for the strange hadrons K0S and Λ/Λ¯ were measured in deep inelastic ep scattering with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 330 pb−1. The evolution of these distributions with the photon virtuality, Q 2, was studied in the kinematic region 10 < Q 2  < 40000 GeV2 and 0.001 < x < 0.75, where x is the Bjorken scaling variable. Clear scaling violations are observed. Predictions based on different approaches to fragmentation were compared to the measurements. Leading-logarithm parton-shower Monte Carlo calculations interfaced to the Lund string fragmentation model describe the data reasonably well in the whole range measured. Next-to-leading-order QCD calculations based on fragmentation functions, FFs, extracted from e + e − data alone, fail to describe the measurements. The calculations based on FFs extracted from a global analysis including e + e −, ep and pp data give an improved description. The measurements presented in this paper have the potential to further constrain the FFs of quarks, anti-quarks and gluons yielding K0S and Λ/Λ¯ strange hadrons

Measurement of beauty and charm production in deep inelastic scattering at HERA and measurement of the beauty-quark mass

The ZEUS collaborationThe production of beauty and charm quarks in ep interactions has been studied with the ZEUS detector at HERA for exchanged four-momentum squared 5 < Q^2 < 1000 GeV^2 using an integrated luminosity of 354 pb^{−1}. The beauty and charm content in events with at least one jet have been extracted using the invariant mass of charged tracks associated with secondary vertices and the decay-length significance of these vertices. Differential cross sections as a function of Q^2, Bjorken x, jet trans- verse energy and pseudorapidity were measured and compared with next-to-leading-order QCD calculations. The beauty and charm contributions to the proton structure functions were extracted from the double-differential cross section as a function of x and Q^2. The running beauty-quark mass, m_b at the scale m_b , was determined from a QCD fit at next-to-leading order to HERA data for the first time and found to be m_b(m_b) = 4.07 ± 0.14(fit)_{−0.07}^{+0.01}(mod.)_{−0.00}^{+0.05}(param.)_{−0.05}^{+0.08}(theo.)GeV.We appreciate the contributions to the construction, maintenance and operation of the ZEUS detector of many people who are not listed as authors. The HERA machine group and the DESY computing staff are especially acknowledged for their success in providing excellent operation of the collider and the data-analysis environment. We thank the DESY directorate for their strong support and encouragement. It is a pleasure to thank the ABKM, CTEQ, JR and MSTW groups that provided the predictions for F_2^{b\overline{b}} shown in figure 12. We gratefully acknowledge the advice from S. Alekhin and R. Plačakytė concerning the appropriate usage of OPENQCDRAD and HERAFitter. Article funded by SCOAP

Photoproduction of isolated photons, inclusively and with a jet, at HERA

ZEUS CollaborationThe photoproduction of isolated photons, both inclusive and together with a jet, has been measured with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 374 pb^{−1}. Differential cross sections are presented in the isolated-photon transverse-energy and pseudorapidity ranges 6 < E^γ_T < 15 GeV and −0.7 < η^γ < 0.9, and for jet transverse-energy and pseudorapidity ranges 4 < E^{jet}_T < 35 GeV and −1.5 <η^{jet} < 1.8, for exchanged-photon virtualities Q^2 < 1 GeV^2. Differential cross sections are also presented for inclusive isolated-photon production as functions of the transverse energy and pseudorapidity of the photon. Higher-order theoretical calculations are compared to the results.We appreciate the contributions to the construction, maintenance and operation of the ZEUS detector made by many people who are not listed as authors. The HERA machine group and the DESY computing staff are especially acknowledged for their success in providing excellent operation of the collider and the data-analysis environment. We thank the DESY directorate for their strong support and encouragement. We also thank M. Fontannaz, G. Heinrich, A. Lipatov, M. Malyshev and N. Zotov for providing assistance and theoretical results. Funded by SCOAP

Erratum: Measurement of D^{∗±} production in deep inelastic scattering at HERA

The ZEUS collaborationIn the analysis for our paper on D* production, the beauty contribution was erroneously subtracted twice in the extraction of the reduced cross sections. This affected tables 9 and 10 as well as figures 9 and 10 that are reproduced here in a corrected version. The kinematical acceptances shown in the last colum of table 10 have been also corrected since they were calculated with a different value for the charm fragmentation fraction than what was used in the rest of the analysis and reported in the text. A misprint was found in table 7: the value in the third column at four rows from the bottom should read 49.8, not 59.8. Finally, one of the authors was missing from the author list: C. Uribe-Estrada (Department of Physics, University of Oxford, United Kingdom).Article funded by SCOAP

Combination and QCD analysis of charm production cross section measurements in deep-inelastic ep scattering at HERA

Measurements of open charm production cross sections in deep-inelastic ep scattering at HERA from the H1 and ZEUS Collaborations are combined. Reduced cross sections sigma(c (c) over bar)(red) for charm production are obtained in the kinematic range of photon virtuality 2.5 LT = Q(2) LT = 2000 GeV2 and Bjorken scaling variable 3 . 10(-5) LT = x LT = 5 . 10(-2). The combination method accounts for the correlations of the systematic uncertainties among the different data sets. The combined charm data together with the combined inclusive deep-inelastic scattering cross sections from HERA are used as input for a detailed NLO QCD analysis to study the influence of different heavy flavour schemes on the parton distribution functions. The optimal values of the charm mass as a parameter in these different schemes are obtained. The implications on the NLO predictions for W-+/- and Z production cross sections at the LHC are investigated. Using the fixed flavour number scheme, the running mass of the charm quark is determined