A measurement of the beauty production cross section in ep collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 319 GeV is presented. The data were collected with the H1 detector at the HERA collider in the years 1999-2000. Events are selected by requiring the presence of jets and muons in the final state. Both the long lifetime and the large mass of b-flavoured hadrons are exploited to identify events containing beauty quarks. Differential cross sections are measured in photoproduction, with photon virtualities Q^2 < 1 GeV^2, and in deep inelastic scattering, where 2 < Q^2 < 100 GeV^2. The results are compared with perturbative QCD calculations to leading and next-to-leading order. The predictions are found to be somewhat lower than the data.
Measurements are presented of differential dijet cross sections in diffractive photoproduction (Q^2<0.01 GeV^2) and deep-inelastic scattering processes (DIS, 4<Q^2<80 GeV^2). The event topology is given by ep-> e X Y, in which the system X, containing at least two jets, is separated from a leading low-mass proton remnant system Y by a large rapidity gap. The dijet cross sections are compared with NLO QCD predictions based on diffractive parton densities previously obtained from a QCD analysis of inclusive diffractive DIS cross sections by H1. In DIS, the dijet data are well described, supporting the validity of QCD factorisation. The diffractive DIS dijet data are more sensitive to the diffractive gluon density at high fractional parton momentum than the measurements of inclusive diffractive DIS. In photoproduction, the predicted dijet cross section has to be multiplied by a factor of approximately 0.5 for both direct and resolved photon interactions to describe the measurements. The ratio of measured dijet cross section to NLO prediction in photoproduction is a factor 0.5+-0.1 smaller than the same ratio in DIS. This suppression is the first clear observation of QCD hard scattering factorisation breaking at HERA. The measurements are also compared to the two soft colour neutralisation models SCI and GAL. The SCI model describes diffractive dijet production in DIS but not in photoproduction. The GAL model fails in both kinematic regions.
Inclusive D* production is measured in deep-inelastic ep scattering at HERA with the H1 detector. In addition, the production of dijets in events with a D* meson is investigated. The analysis covers values of photon virtuality 2< Q^2 <=100 GeV^2 and of inelasticity 0.05<= y <= 0.7. Differential cross sections are measured as a function of Q^2 and x and of various D* meson and jet observables. Within the experimental and theoretical uncertainties all measured cross sections are found to be adequately described by next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD calculations, based on the photon-gluon fusion process and DGLAP evolution, without the need for an additional resolved component of the photon beyond what is included at NLO. A reasonable description of the data is also achieved by a prediction based on the CCFM evolution of partons involving the k_T-unintegrated gluon distribution of the proton.
Deep-inelastic ep scattering data taken with the H1 detector at HERA and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 106 pb^{-1} are used to study the differential distributions of event shape variables. These include thrust, jet broadening, jet mass and the C-parameter. The four-momentum transfer Q is taken to be the relevant energy scale and ranges between 14 GeV and 200 GeV. The event shape distributions are compared with perturbative QCD predictions, which include resummed contributions and analytical power law corrections, the latter accounting for non-perturbative hadronisation effects. The data clearly exhibit the running of the strong coupling alpha_s(Q) and are consistent with a universal power correction parameter alpha_0 for all event shape variables. A combined QCD fit using all event shape variables yields alpha_s(mZ) = 0.1198 \pm 0.0013 ^{+0.0056}_{-0.0043} and alpha_0 = 0.476 \pm 0.008 ^{+0.018} _{-0.059}.
Differential dijet cross sections are measured in photoproduction in the region of photon virtualities Q^2 < 1 GeV^2 with the H1 detector at the HERA ep collider using an integrated luminosity of 66.6 pb^{-1}. Jets are defined with the inclusive k_T algorithm and a minimum transverse momentum of the leading jet of 25 GeV is required. Dijet cross sections are measured in direct and resolved photon enhanced regions separately. Longitudinal proton momentum fractions up to 0.7 are reached. The data compare well with predictions from Monte Carlo event generators based on leading order QCD and parton showers and with next-to-leading order QCD calculations corrected for hadronisation effects.
A measurement of inclusive jet cross-sections in deep-inelastic ep scattering at HERA is presented based on data with an integrated luminosity of 21.1 pb^-1. The measurement is performed for photon virtualities Q^2 between 5 and 100 GeV^2, differentially in Q^2, in the jet transverse energy E_T, in E_T^2/Q^2 and in the pseudorapidity eta_lab. With the renormalization scale mu_R = E_T, perturbative QCD calculations in next-to-leading order (NLO) give a good description of the data in most of the phase space. Significant discrepancies are observed only for jets in the proton beam direction with E_T below 20 GeV and Q^2 below 20 GeV^2. This corresponds to the region in which NLO corrections are largest and further improvement of the calculations is thus of particular interest.
The inclusive production of D^{*+-}(2010) mesons in deep-inelastic scattering is studied with the H1 detector at HERA. In the kinematic region 11.5 GeV and |\eta_(D^*)|<1.5. Single and double differential inclusive D^(*+-) meson cross sections are compared to perturbative QCD calculations in two different evolution schemes. The charm contribution to the proton structure, F_2^c(x,Q^2), is determined by extrapolating the visible charm cross section to the full phase space. This contribution is found to rise from about 10% at Q^2 = 1.5 GeV^2 to more than 25% at Q^2 = 60 GeV^2 corresponding to x values ranging from 5*10^(-5) to 3*10^(-3)$.
Deep inelastic scattering (DIS) events, selected from 1993 data taken by the H1 experiment at HERA, are studied in the Breit frame of reference. The fragmentation function of the quark is compared with those of \ee data. It is shown that certain aspects of the quarks emerging from within the proton in \ep interactions are essentially the same as those of quarks pair-created from the vacuum in \ee annihilation. The measured area, peak position and widthof the fragmentation function show that the kinematic evolution variable, equivalent to the \ee squared centre of mass energy, is in the Breit frame the invariant square of the four-momentum transfer. We comment on the extent to which we have evidence for coherence effects in parton showers.
The production of neutral strange hadrons is investigated using deep-inelastic scattering events measured with the H1 detector at HERA. The measurements are made in the phase space defined by the negative four-momentum transfer squared of the photon 2 < Q^2 < 100 GeV^2 and the inelasticity 0.1 < y < 0.6. The K_s and Lambda production cross sections and their ratios are determined. K_s production is compared to the production of charged particles in the same region of phase space. The Lambda - anti-Lambda asymmetry is also measured and found to be consistent with zero. Predictions of leading order Monte Carlo programs are compared to the data.
The production of transverse energy in deep inelastic scattering is measured as a function of the kinematic variables $x$ and $Q~2$ using the H1 detector at the ep collider HERA. The results are compared to the different predictions based upon two alternative QCD evolution equations, namely the Dokshitzer-Gribov-Lipatov-Altarelli-Parisi (DGLAP) and the Balitsky-Fadin-Kuraev-Lipatov (BFKL) equations. In a pseudorapidity interval which is central in the hadronic centre of mass system between the current and the proton remnant fragmentation region the produced transverse energy increases with decreasing $x$ for constant $Q~2$. Such a behaviour can be explained with a QCD calculation based upon the BFKL ansatz. The rate of forward jets, proposed as a signature for BFKL dynamics, has been measured.