Measurement of the reaction gamma*p->phi p in deep, inelastic e(+)p scattering at HERA

The production of phi mesons in the reaction e(+)p --> e(+)phi p (phi --> K+K-), for 7 phi p cross section rises strongly with W. This behaviour is similar to that previously found for the gamma*p --> rho(0)p cross section. This strong dependence cannot be explained by production through soft pomeron exchange, It is, however, consistent with perturbative QCD expectations, where it reflects the rise of the gluon momentum density in the proton at small x. The ratio of sigma(phi)/sigma(rho(0)), which has previously been determined by ZEUS to be 0.065 +/- 0.013 (stat.) in photoproduction at a mean W of 70 GeV, is measured to be 0.18 +/- 0.05 (stat.) +/- 0.03 (syst.) at a mean Q(2) of 12.3 GeV2 and mean W of approximate to 100 GeV and is thus approaching at large Q(2) the value of 2/9 predicted from the quark charges of the vector mesons and a flavour independent production mechanism

Directed collective flow and azimuthal distributions in Ar-36+Al-27 collisions from 55 to 95 MeV/u

A 4 pi charged particle detector array with a low velocity threshold has been used to detect the products from reactions induced by Ar-36 on Al-27 at energies ranging from 55 to 95 MeV/u. Well characterized events were selected and sorted as a function of the impact parameter. Two methods were used for sorting these events with respect to their impact parameters and three methods were compared to determine the reaction plane. The transverse momentum analysis has been found to be the best method to extract the direction of the reaction plane for this system and for the experimental set-up used here. The energy of vanishing flow for central collisions has been found to be around 90-95 MeV/u. The azimuthal distributions of mid-rapidity particles exhibit a preferential in-plane emission and no squeeze-out effect

MEASUREMENT OF MULTIPLICITY AND MOMENTUM SPECTRA IN THE CURRENT FRAGMENTATION REGION OF THE BREIT FRAME AT HERA

Charged particle production has been measured in Deep Inelastic Scattering (DIS) events using the ZEUS detector over a large range of Q(2) from 10 to 1280 GeV2 The evolution with Q of the charged multiplicity and scaled momentum has been investigated in the current fragmentation region of the Breit frame. The data are used to study QCD coherence effects in DIS and are compared with corresponding e(+)e(-) data in order to test the universality of quark fragmentation

Measurement of elastic phi photoproduction at HERA

The production of phi mesons in the reaction e(+)p --> e(+)phi p (phi --> K+K-) at a median Q(2) of 10(-4) GeV2 has been studied with the ZEUS detector at HERA. The differential phi photoproduction cross section d sigma/dt has an exponential shape and has been determined in the kinematic range 0.1 phi p) = 0.96+/-0.19(-0.18)(+0.21) mu b has been obtained by extrapolating to t = 0. When compared to lower energy data, the results show a weak energy dependence of both sigma(gamma-->phi p) and the slope of the t distribution. The phi decay angular distributions are consistent with s-channel helicity conservation. From lower energies to HERA energies, the features of phi photoproduction are compatible with those of a soft diffractive process

Study of photon dissociation in diffractive photoproduction at HERA

Diffractive dissociation of quasi-real photons at a photon-proton centre of mass energy of W ≈ 200 GeV is studied with the ZEUS detector at HERA. The process under consideration is γp → XN, where X is the diffractively dissociated photon system of mass MX and N is either a proton or a nucleonic system with mass MN < 2 GeV. The cross section for this process in the interval 3 < MX < 24 GeV relative to the total photoproduction cross section was measured to be σDpartial/σtot = 6.2 ± 0.2(stat) ± 1.4(syst)%. After extrapolating this result to the mass interval of mφ2 < MX2 < 0.05W2 and correcting it for proton dissociation, the fraction of the total cross section attributed to single diffractive photon dissociation, γp → Xp, is found to be σSD/σtot = 13.3 ± 0.5(stat) ± 3.6(syst)%. The mass spectrum of the dissociated photon system in the interval 8 < MX < 24 GeV can be described by the triple pomeron (IP IP IP) diagram with an effective pomeron intercept of αIP(0) = 1.12 ± 0.04(stat) ± 0.08(syst). The cross section for photon dissociation in the range 3 < MX < 8 GeV is significantly higher than that expected from the triple pomeron amplitude describing the region 8 < MX < 24 GeV. Assuming that this discrepancy is due to a pomeron-pomeron-reggeon (IP IP IR) term, its contribution to the diffractive cross section in the interval 3 < MX < 24 GeV is estimated to be fIP IP IR = 26 ± 3(stat) ± 12(syst)%. © Springer-Verlag 1997