Deep inelastic scattering, diffraction, and all that

These lectures include an introduction to the partonic description of the proton, the photon and the `colour singlet', as seen in inclusive and semi-inclusive DIS, in $e^+e^-$ collisions, and in diffractive processes, respectively. Their formal treatment using structure, fragmentation, and fracture functions is outlined giving an insight into the perturbative QCD framework for these functions. Examples and comparisons with experimental data from LEP, HERA, and Tevatron are also covered.Comment: 46 pages, 52 postscript figures, LaTeX, aipproc.sty. To be published in the proceedings of VII Mexican Workshop on Particles and Field

Photoproduction of jets and the virtual structure of the photon

We compute the ratio between the direct and the resolved photon components of single jet and dijet production in $ep$ collisions for the kinematical range covered by the most recent ZEUS data. We analyse the phenomenological consequences of different models for the structure of virtual photons in these observables and compare them with the available data. We also comment on the correlation between the so called $x_{\gamma}^{obs}$ and the `true' $x_{\gamma}$, that can be inferred from the data.Comment: epsfig, 5 figure

NLO Scale Dependence of Semi-Inclusive Processes

We discuss the order \alpha_s^2 gluon initiated QCD corrections to one particle inclusive deep inelastic processes. We focus in the NLO evolution kernels relevant for the non homogeneous QCD scale dependence of these cross sections and factorization.Comment: Poster presentation at the XXIII Physics in Collision Conference (PIC03), Zeuthen, Germany, June 2003, 3 pages, LaTeX, 4 eps figures, PSN FRAP1

The role of heavy quarks in light hadron fragmentation

We investigate the role of heavy quarks in the production of light flavored hadrons and in the determination of the corresponding non perturbative hadronization probabilities. We define a general mass variable flavor number scheme for fragmentation functions that accounts for heavy quark mass effects, and perform a global QCD analysis to an up-to-date data set including very precise Belle and BaBar results. We show that the mass dependent picture provides a much more accurate and consistent description of data.Comment: 5 pages, 3 eps figure

Medium Effects in DIS from Polarized Nuclear Targets

The behavior of the nucleon structure functions in lepton nuclei deep inelastic scattering, both polarized and unpolarized, due to nuclear structure effects is reanalyzed. The study is performed in two schemes: an x-rescaling approach, and one in which there is an increase of sea quark components in the in medium nucleon, related to the low energy N-N interaction. In view of a recent interesting experimental proposal to study the behavior of the proton spin structure functions in nuclei we proceed to compare these approaches in an effort to enlighten the possible phenomenological interest of such difficult experiment.Comment: 11 pages and 5 figure

The Landau Distribution for Charged Particles Traversing Thin Films

The Landau distribution as well as its first and second momenta are well suited for describing the energy loss of charged particles traversing a thin layer of matter. At present, just rational approximations and asymptotic expressions for these functions were obtained. In this paper we present a direct calculation of the integral representation of these functions obtaining perturbative and nonperturvative solutions expressed in terms of fast convergent series. We also provide a simple numerical algorithm which allows to control speed and precision of the results. The testing runs have provided, in reasonable computing times, correct results up to 13-14 significant digits on the density and distribution functions and 9-10 on the first and second momenta. If necessary, this accuracy could be improved by adding more coefficients to the algorithm.Comment: 29 pages, 4 Table