Photoproduction events which have two or more jets have been studied in the $W_{\gamma p}$ range 135GeV $< W_{\gamma p} <$ 280GeV with the ZEUS detector at HERA. A class of events is observed with little hadronic activity between the jets. The jets are separated by pseudorapidity intervals ($\Delta\eta$) of up to four units and have transverse energies greater than 6GeV. A gap is defined as the absence between the jets of particles with transverse energy greater than 300MeV. The fraction of events containing a gap is measured as a function of \deta. It decreases exponentially as expected for processes in which colour is exchanged between the jets, up to a value of $\Delta\eta \sim 3$, then reaches a constant value of about 0.1. The excess above the exponential fall-off can be interpreted as evidence for hard diffractive scattering via a strongly interacting colour singlet object.

We report on a measurement of the proton structure function $F_2$ in the range $3.5\times10~{-5}\leq x \leq 4\times10~{-3}$ and 1.5 ${\rm GeV~2} \leq Q~2 \leq15$ ${\rm GeV~2}$ at the $ep$ collider HERA operating at a centre-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s} = 300$ ${\rm GeV}$. The rise of $F_2$ with decreasing $x$ observed in the previous HERA measurements persists in this lower $x$ and $Q~2$ range. The $Q~2$ evolution of $F_2$, even at the lowest $Q~2$ and $x$ measured, is consistent with perturbative QCD.

Jet production in deep inelastic scattering for $120<Q~2<3600$GeV$~2$ has been studied using data from an integrated luminosity of 3.2pb$~{-1}$ collected with the ZEUS detector at HERA. Jets are identified with the JADE algorithm. A cut on the angular distribution of parton emission in the $\gamma~*$-parton centre-of-mass system minimises the experimental and theoretical uncertainties in the determination of the jet rates. The jet rates, when compared to ${\cal O}$($\alpha_{s}$~2$) perturbative QCD calculations, allow a precise determination of $\alpha_{s}(Q)$ in three $Q~2$-intervals. The values are consistent with a running of $\alpha_{s}(Q)$, as expected from QCD. Extrapolating to $Q=M_{Z~0}$ yields $\alpha_{s}(M_{Z~0}) = 0.117\pm0.005(stat)~{+0.004}_{-0.005}(syst_{exp}) {\pm0.007}(syst_{theory})$.

This paper presents an analysis of the inclusive properties of diffractive deep inelastic scattering events produced in $ep$ interactions at HERA. The events are characterised by a rapidity gap between the outgoing proton system and the remaining hadronic system. Inclusive distributions are presented and compared with Monte Carlo models for diffractive processes. The data are consistent with models where the pomeron structure function has a hard and a soft contribution. The diffractive structure function is measured as a function of $\xpom$, the momentum fraction lost by the proton, of $\beta$, the momentum fraction of the struck quark with respect to $\xpom$, and of $Q~2$. The $\xpom$ dependence is consistent with the form \xpoma where $a=1.30\pm0.08(stat)~{+0.08}_{-0.14}(sys)$ in all bins of $\beta$ and $Q~2$. In the measured $Q~2$ range, the diffractive structure function approximately scales with $Q~2$ at fixed $\beta$. In an Ingelman-Schlein type model, where commonly used pomeron flux factor normalisations are assumed, it is found that the quarks within the pomeron do not saturate the momentum sum rule.

Photoproduction at HERA is studied in $ep$ collisions, with the ZEUS detector, for $\gamma p$ centre-of-mass energies ranging from 130-270 GeV. A sample of events with two high-$p_T$ jets ($p_T > 6$ GeV, $\eta <1.6$) and a third cluster in the approximate direction of the electron beam is isolated using a clustering algorithm. These events are mostly due to resolved photoproduction. The third cluster is identified as the photon remnant. Its properties, such as the transverse and longitudinal energy flows around the axis of the cluster, are consistent with those commonly attributed to jets, and in particular with those found for the two jets in these events. The mean value of the photon remnant $p_T$ with respect to the beam axis is measured to be $2.1 \pm 0.2$ GeV, which demonstrates substantial mean transverse momenta for the photon remnant.

This paper presents measurements of \k\ and \lam\ production in neutral current, deep inelastic scattering of 26.7 GeV electrons and 820 GeV protons in the kinematic range $ 10 < Q~{2} < 640 $ GeV$~2$, $0.0003 < x < 0.01$, and $y > 0.04$. Average multiplicities for \k\ and \lam\ production are determined for transverse momenta \ \ptr\ $> 0.5 $ GeV and pseudorapidities $\left| \eta \right| < 1.3$. The multiplicities favour a stronger strange to light quark suppression in the fragmentation chain than found in $e~+ e~-$ experiments. The production properties of \k's in events with and without a large rapidity gap with respect to the proton direction are compared. The ratio of neutral \k's to charged particles per event in the measured kinematic range is, within the present statistics, the same in both samples.

Deep inelastic $e~-p$ scattering has been studied in both the charged-current (CC) and neutral-current (NC) reactions at momentum transfers squared, $Q~2$, between 400 GeV$~2$ and the kinematic limit of 87500 GeV$~2$ using the ZEUS detector at the HERA $ep$ collider. The CC and NC total cross sections, the NC to CC cross section ratio, and the differential cross sections, $ d\sigma/dQ~2 $, are presented. For $Q~2 \simeq M_W~2$, where $M_W$ is the mass of the $W$ boson, the CC and NC cross sections have comparable magnitudes, demonstrating the equal strengths of the weak and electromagnetic interactions at high $Q~2$. The $Q~2$ dependence of the CC cross section determines the mass term in the CC propagator to be $M_{W} = 76 \pm 16 \pm 13$GeV.

Inclusive transverse momentum spectra of charged particles in photoproduction events in the laboratory pseudorapidity range $-1.2<\eta<1.4$ have been measured up to $p_{T}=8\GeV $ using the ZEUS detector. Diffractive and non--diffractive reactions have been selected with an average $\gamma p$ centre of mass (c.m.) energy of $\langle W \rangle = 180\GeV$. For diffractive reactions, the $p_{T}$ spectra of the photon dissociation events have been measured in two intervals of the dissociated photon mass with mean values $\langle M_{X} \rangle = 5$ GeV and $10$ GeV. The inclusive transverse momentum spectra fall exponentially in the low $p_{T}$ region. The non--diffractive data show a pronounced high $p_{T}$ tail departing from the exponential shape. The $p_{T}$ distributions are compared to lower energy photoproduction data and to hadron--hadron collisions at a similar c.m. energy. The data are also compared to the results of a next--to--leading order QCD calculation.

Dijet production by almost real photons has been studied at HERA with the ZEUS detector. Jets have been identified using the cone algorithm. A cut on xg, the fraction of the photon energy participating in the production of the two jets of highest transverse energy, is used to define cross sections sensitive to the parton distributions in the proton and in the photon. The dependence of the dijet cross sections on pseudorapidity has been measured for xg $\ge 0.75$ and xg $< 0.75$. The former is sensitive to the gluon momentum density in the proton. The latter is sensitive to the gluon in the photon. The cross sections are corrected for detector acceptance and compared to leading order QCD calculations.

We report the first observation of charmed mesons with the ZEUS detector at HERA using the decay channel ${\rm D}~{*+}\rightarrow (\Do \rightarrow {\rm K}~-\pi~+)\pi~+$ (+ c.c.). Clear signals in the mass difference $\Delta M$=$M$(D$~*$)--$M$(D$~0)$ as well as in the $M(K\pi)$ distribution at the D$~0$ mass are found. The $ep$ cross section for inclusive \DSpm\ production with $Q~2<4\GeV~2$ in the $\gamma p$ centre-of-mass energy range $115 < W < 275$ \GeV\ has been determined to be $(32 \pm 7~{+4}_{-7} )$ nb in the kinematic region \mbox{\{$p_T(\DS)\geq $ 1.7 \,\GeV, $|\eta(\DS)| < 1.5 $\}}. Ex\-tra\-po\-la\-ting outside this region, assuming a mass of the charm quark of 1.5 \GeV, we estimate the $ep$ charm cross section to be $\sigma(e p \rightarrow c \bar{c}X ) = (0.45 \pm 0.11~{+0.37}_{-0.22}) \, \mu {\rm b} $ at \mbox{$\sqrt{s} = 296$}\GeV\ and $\langle W \rangle = 198$ \GeV. The average $\gamma p$ charm cross section \mbox{$\sigma(\gamma p \rightarrow c \bar{c}X )$} is found to be \mbox{$(6.3 \pm 2.2~{+6.3}_{-3.0}) \, \mu {\rm b} $} at $\langle W \rangle = 163$ \GeV\ and \mbox{$(16.9 \pm 5.2~{+13.9}_{-8.5}) \, \mu {\rm b} $} at $\langle W \rangle = 243$ \GeV. The increase of the total charm photoproduction cross section by one order of magnitude with respect to low energy data experiments is well described by QCD NLO calculations using singular gluon distributions in the proton.