Charged particle production in deep-inelastic ep scattering is measured with the H1 detector at HERA. The kinematic range of the analysis covers low photon virtualities, 5<Q (2)<100 GeV(2), and small values of Bjorken-x, 10(−4)<x<10(−2). The analysis is performed in the hadronic centre-of-mass system. The charged particle densities are measured as a function of pseudorapidity (η (∗)) and transverse momentum ( ) in the range 0<η (∗)<5 and in bins of x and Q (2). The data are compared to predictions from different Monte Carlo generators implementing various options for hadronisation and parton evolutions.
The multiplicity structure of the hadronic system X produced in deep-inelastic processes at HERA of the type ep -> eXY, where Y is a hadronic system with mass M_Y< 1.6 GeV and where the squared momentum transfer at the pY vertex, t, is limited to |t|<1 GeV^2, is studied as a function of the invariant mass M_X of the system X. Results are presented on multiplicity distributions and multiplicity moments, rapidity spectra and forward-backward correlations in the centre-of-mass system of X. The data are compared to results in e+e- annihilation, fixed-target lepton-nucleon collisions, hadro-produced diffractive final states and to non-diffractive hadron-hadron collisions. The comparison suggests a production mechanism of virtual photon dissociation which involves a mixture of partonic states and a significant gluon content. The data are well described by a model, based on a QCD-Regge analysis of the diffractive structure function, which assumes a large hard gluonic component of the colourless exchange at low Q^2. A model with soft colour interactions is also successful.
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