Inclusive particle production at HERA

We calculate in next-to-leading order inclusive cross sections of single-particle production via resolved photons inep collisions at HERA. Transverse-momentum and rapidity distributions are presented and the scale dependence is studied. The results are compared with first experimental data from the H1 Collaboration at HERA.     

Heavy flavour production at HERA

The production of heavy flavours at HERA has been investigated with a new Monte Carlo generator, which describes the heavy quark production ine–p scattering via boson-gluon fusion. The program has been developed in the framework of the HERWIG Monte Carlo and, different from the existing generator AROMA from the Lund package, takes account of the initial state radiation associated with higher order QCD corrections. The production at HERA energies has been studied in the two different approaches. As expected, large differences for the particle and energy flows have been found.     

Inclusive particle production at HERA

We calculate in next-to-leading order inclusive cross sections of single-particle production via both direct and resolved photons inep collisions at HERA. Transversemomentum and rapidity distributions are presented and the dependences on renormalization and factorization scales and subtraction schemes are investigated.Supported by the Bundesministerium für Forschung und Technologie under Contract 05 6 HH 93P (5), Bonn, Germany     

Diffractive open charm production at HERA

We use perturbative QCD to calculate the cross sections σ^LT for the diffractive production of open charm (cc) from longitudinally and transversely polarised photons (of virtuality Q2) incident at high energy (√S) on a proton target. We study both the Q ² and M ² dependence of the cross sections, where M is the invariant mass of the cc pair. Surprisingly, the result for σ^T, as well as for σ^L, is perturbatively stable. We estimate higher-order corrections and find a sizeable enhancement of the cross sections. The cross sections depend on the square of the gluon density g(x, K²), and we show that the observation of open charm at the HERA electron-proton collider can act as a sensitive probe of the gluon distribution for x = (Q ² + M ²)/s and scale K2 = (M ²c + )(1 + Q ²/M ²) where the average quark transverse momentum squared 〈k ₂ ^t ~ (M ²c . As compared to diffractive J/#x03C8; production, open charm has the advantage that it is independent of the non-perturbative ambiguities arising from the J/#x03C8; wave function. We estimate the fraction of diffractive events that arise from cc¯ production.     

Semi-exclusive production of photons at HERA

We study the feasibility of measuring the semi-exclusive photon production at HERA. The cross section of photons produced at large transverse momenta, recoiling off an inclusive system Y of limited mass, can without photon isolation cuts simply be expressed in terms of hard PQCD subprocesses and standard target parton distributions. With the help of event generators we identify the kinematic region where quark and gluon fragmentation processes can be neglected. The cross section in this semi-exclusive region is large enough to be measured with an upgraded HERA luminosity of . The subprocesses of lowest order in are suppressed at low recoil masses , compared to higher order gluon exchange, i.e. BFKL contributions. The distinct -dependence makes it possible to determine experimentally the kinematic range where the higher order processes dominate. Received: 27 March 2000 / Revised version: 6 June 2000 / Published online: 9 August 2000     

Diffractive production of dijets at HERA

We investigate the production of a quark-antiquark pair in diffractive photon-proton scattering, approximating soft pomeron exchange by the exchange of two nonperturbative gluons. In deep inelastic scattering at HERA, events with two jets and the scattered proton in the final state are predicted to be observable, with an important contribution from charm production. For photoproduction of light quark jets with high transverse momentum we find that both exchanged gluons must have a large invariant mass, so that the cross section is very small, whereas for charm quarks it is quite appreciable. From our calculation we also extract the quark structure function of the pomeron for the scaling variablez no too close to 0 or 1, finding a strong flavour dependence and a behaviour somewhat harder thanz(1?z) for light quarks.     

Multi-lepton production at high transverse momentum at HERA

A search for events containing two or more high-transverse-momentum isolated leptons has been performed in ep collisions with the ZEUS detector at HERA using the full collected data sample, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 480 pb⁻¹. The number of observed events has been compared with the prediction from the Standard Model, searching for possible deviations, especially for multi-lepton events with invariant mass larger than 100 GeV. Good agreement with the Standard Model has been observed. Total and differential cross sections for di-lepton production have been measured in a restricted phase space dominated by photon–photon collisions.     

Excited lepton production at LEP and HERA

General expressions for single and pair production cross sections of excited leptons (e ^*,µ^*,v ^*) are presented. Specific results are shown for a realisticSU(2)×U(1) invariant model. Pair production ine ⁺ e ^? annihilation can measure anomalous magnetic moments of excited leptons. Single production ofe ^* is dominated by thet-channel γ exchange contribution which makes its detection feasible up to masses just below thee ⁺ e ^? c.m. energy. Due to this small |t| enhancement effect, contributions from elastic and resonance scattering inep production ofe ^* are substantial. Realistic estimates of the excited lepton production cross section at HERA are given     

Elastic J/ψ production at HERA

Cross sections for elastic production of J/ψ mesons in photoproduction and electroproduction are measured in electron proton collisions at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 55 pb^-1. Results are presented for photon virtualities Q² up to 80 GeV². The dependence on the photon-proton centre of mass energy W_γp is analysed in the range 40≤W_γp≤305 GeV in photoproduction and 40≤W_γp≤160 GeV in electroproduction. The W_γp dependences of the cross sections do not change significantly with Q² and can be described by models based on perturbative QCD. Within such models, the data show a high sensitivity to the gluon density of the proton in the domain of low Bjorken x and low Q². Differential cross sections dσ/dt, where t is the squared four-momentum transfer at the proton vertex, are measured in the range |t|<1.2 GeV² as functions of W_γp and Q². Effective Pomeron trajectories are determined for photoproduction and electroproduction. The J/ψ production and decay angular distributions are consistent with s-channel helicity conservation. The ratio of the cross sections for longitudinally and transversely polarised photons is measured as a function of Q² and is found to be described by perturbative QCD based models.     

Hadron production by ep collisions at HERA

TheP distribution of hadrons from deep-inelastic ep collisions of the H1 experiment determines for the hadrons in the final state, a temperature 277±14 MeV220 MeV of the critical temperature predicted by QCD, suggesting the formation of quark-gluon plasma (QGP). From their forward to backward ratio, it is found an excess of hadrons arising from the deconfinement of quarks inside the proton.     

Largep T prompt photon production at HERA

We examine the possibility of using direct photon production at HERA as a means of obtaining information about the photon structure and fragmentation functions. Estimates of the cross section for inclusive prompt photon production at theep collider HERA are made completely in next-to-leading order QCD. Using parton distributions for the photon evolved in next-to-leading order QCD for the first time, we show that theO( _s ) corrections to the processes involving these functions are significant in the regions where they dominate. This can have important consequences for the possibility of measuring the gluon content of the photon using these processes at HERA. Moreover, we show that it may not be straightforward to separate the various contributions to the cross section in theep lab frame.     

Selectron and squark production inep collisions at HERA

For the SUSY Standard Model we give a detailed discussion how HERA can be used for disentangling the mixing structure in the neutralino sector. We present 3-dimensional plots for the total cross section and for the polarization asymmetry for selectron-squark production, varying both the sfermion masses and a mixing parameter. The main results are: (i) production rates at HERA are reasonably large for a wide range of mixing parameters; (ii) the polarization asymmetry depends only weakly upon the sfermion masses and thus is a very useful tool in determining mixing parameters or mass splittings between left and right handed selectron masses.     

Charm and bottom production at RHIC

The current status of charm and bottom production measurements at RHIC is summarized. Heavy-flavor data from p+p collisions at provide a crucial testing ground for perturbative QCD calculations and serve as a baseline for measurements in nucleus-nucleus collisions. Due to their large mass heavy quarks are produced in hard parton scattering processes in the earliest phase of a nucleus-nucleus collisions such that they can be used to probe the hot and dense medium that is formed in the course of Au+Au collisions at RHIC.     

Tau lepton production in ep collisions at HERA

The production of tau leptons in ep collisions is investigated using data recorded by the H1 detector at HERA in the period 1994–2000. Tau leptons are identified by detecting their decay products, using leptonic and hadronic decay modes. The cross section for the production of tau lepton pairs is measured for the first time at HERA. Furthermore, a search for events with an energetic isolated tau lepton and with large missing transverse momentum is performed. The results are found to be in agreement with the Standard Model predictions.     

Charmonium production in deep inelastic scattering at HERA

The electroproduction of and mesons is studied in elastic, quasi-elastic and inclusive reactions for four momentum transfers and photon-proton centre of mass energies GeV. The data were taken with the H1 detector at the electron proton collider HERA in the years 1995 to 1997. The total virtual photon-proton cross section for elastic production is measured as a function of and W. The dependence of the production rates on the square of the momentum transfer from the proton (t) is extracted. Decay angular distributions are analysed and the ratio of the longitudinal and transverse cross sections is derived. The ratio of the cross sections for quasi-elastic and meson production is measured as a function of . The results are discussed in terms of theoretical models based upon perturbative QCD. Differential cross sections for inclusive and inelastic production of mesons are determined and predictions within two theoretical frameworks are compared with the data, the non-relativistic QCD factorization approach including colour octet and colour singlet contributions, and the model of Soft Colour Interactions. Received: 10 March 1999 / Published online: 8 September 1999