Measurement of neutral and charged current cross sections in electron-proton collisions at high Q^2

The inclusive single and double differential cross sections for neutral and charged current processes are measured with the H1 detector at HERA, in the range of four-momentum transfer squared between 150 and 30 000 GeV, and Bjorken x between 0.002 and 0.65. The data were taken in 1998 and 1999 with a centre-of-mass energy of 320 GeV and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 16.4 pb. The data are compared with recent measurements of the inclusive neutral and charged current cross sections. For clear evidence is observed for an asymmetry between and neutral current scattering and the generalised structure function is extracted for the first time at HERA. A fit to the charged current data is used to extract a value for the W boson propagator mass. The data are found to be in good agreement with Standard Model predictions. Received: 21 December 2000 / Published online: 15 March 2001