The production of D*+-(2010) mesons in deep inelastic scattering has been measured in the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 37 pb^-1. The decay channels D*+ -> D0 pi+(+c.c.), with D0 -> K- pi+ or D0 ->K- pi- pi+ pi+, have been used to identify the D mesons. The e+p cross section for inclusive D*+- production with 1<Q^2<600 GeV^2 and 0.02<y<0.7 is 8.31 +- 0.31(stat.) +0.30-0.50(syst.) nb in the kinematic region 1.5< pT(D*+-)<15 GeV and |eta(D*+-)|<1.5. Differential cross sections are consistent with a next-to-leading-order perturbative-QCD calculation when using charm-fragmentation models which take into account the interaction of the charm quark with the proton remnant. The observed cross section is extrapolated to the full kinematic region in pT(D*+-) and eta(D*+-) in order to determine the charm contribution, F^ccbar_2(x,Q^2), to the proton structure function. The ratio F^ccbar_2/F_2 rises from ~10% at Q^2 ~1.8 GeV^2 to ~30% at Q^2 ~130 GeV^2 for x values in the range 10^-4 to 10-3.

Charm production in deep inelastic scattering has been measured with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 82 pb^{-1}. Charm has been tagged by reconstructing D^{*+}, D^0, D^{+} and D_s^+ (+ c.c.) charm mesons. The charm hadrons were measured in the kinematic range p_T(D^{*+},D^0,D^{+}) > 3 GeV, p_T(D_s^+)>2 GeV and |\eta(D)| < 1.6 for 1.5 < Q^2 < 1000 GeV^2 and 0.02 < y < 0.7. The production cross sections were used to extract charm fragmentation ratios and the fraction of c quarks hadronising into a particular charm meson in the kinematic range considered. The cross sections were compared to the predictions of next-to-leading-order QCD, and extrapolated to the full kinematic region in p_T(D) and \eta(D) in order to determine the open-charm contribution, F_2^{c\bar{c}}(x,Q^2), to the proton structure function F_2.

The production of energetic neutrons in $ep$ collisions has been studied with the ZEUS detector at HERA. The neutron energy and $p_T^2$ distributions were measured with a forward neutron calorimeter and tracker in a $40 \pb^{-1}$ sample of inclusive deep inelastic scattering (DIS) data and a $6 \pb^{-1}$ sample of photoproduction data. The neutron yield in photoproduction is suppressed relative to DIS for the lower neutron energies and the neutrons have a steeper $p_T^2$ distribution, consistent with the expectation from absorption models. The distributions are compared to HERA measurements of leading protons. The neutron energy and transverse-momentum distributions in DIS are compared to Monte Carlo simulations and to the predictions of particle exchange models. Models of pion exchange incorporating absorption and additional secondary meson exchanges give a good description of the data.

Inclusive dijet and trijet production in deep inelastic $ep$ scattering has been measured for $10&lt;Q^2&lt;100$ GeV$^2$ and low Bjorken $x$, $10^{-4}&lt;x_{\rm Bj}&lt;10^{-2}$. The data were taken at the HERA $ep$ collider with centre-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s} = 318 \gev$ using the ZEUS detector and correspond to an integrated luminosity of $82 {\rm pb}^{-1}$. Jets were identified in the hadronic centre-of-mass (HCM) frame using the $k_{T}$ cluster algorithm in the longitudinally invariant inclusive mode. Measurements of dijet and trijet differential cross sections are presented as functions of $Q^2$, $x_{\rm Bj}$, jet transverse energy, and jet pseudorapidity. As a further examination of low-$x_{\rm Bj}$ dynamics, multi-differential cross sections as functions of the jet correlations in transverse momenta, azimuthal angles, and pseudorapidity are also presented. Calculations at $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_{s}^3)$ generally describe the trijet data well and improve the description of the dijet data compared to the calculation at $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_{s}^2)$.

Inclusive jet cross sections in photoproduction for events containing a $D^*$ meson have been measured with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of $78.6 {\rm pb}^{-1}$. The events were required to have a virtuality of the incoming photon, $Q^2$, of less than 1 GeV$^2$, and a photon-proton centre-of-mass energy in the range $130&lt;W_{\gamma p}&lt;280 {\rm GeV}$. The measurements are compared with next-to-leading-order (NLO) QCD calculations. Good agreement is found with the NLO calculations over most of the measured kinematic region. Requiring a second jet in the event allowed a more detailed comparison with QCD calculations. The measured dijet cross sections are also compared to Monte Carlo (MC) models which incorporate leading-order matrix elements followed by parton showers and hadronisation. The NLO QCD predictions are in general agreement with the data although differences have been isolated to regions where contributions from higher orders are expected to be significant. The MC models give a better description than the NLO predictions of the shape of the measured cross sections.

The production of the neutral strange hadrons $K^{0}_{S}$, $\Lambda$ and $\bar{\Lambda}$ has been measured in $ep$ collisions at HERA using the ZEUS detector. Cross sections, baryon-to-meson ratios, relative yields of strange and charged light hadrons, $\Lambda$ ($\bar{\Lambda}$) asymmetry and polarization have been measured in three kinematic regions: $Q^2 > 25 \gev^2$: $5 < Q^2 < 25 \gev^2$: and in photoproduction ($Q^2 \simeq 0$). In photoproduction the presence of two hadronic jets, each with at least $5 \gev$ transverse energy, was required. The measurements agree in general with Monte Carlo models and are consistent with measurements made at $e^+ e^-$ colliders, except for an enhancement of baryon relative to meson production in photoproduction.

The semi-inclusive reaction e+ p -> e+ X p was studied with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 12.8 pb-1. The final-state proton, which was detected with the ZEUS leading proton spectrometer, carried a large fraction of the incoming proton energy, xL>0.32, and its transverse momentum squared satisfied pT^2<0.5 GeV^2/ the exchanged photon virtuality, Q^2, was greater than 3 GeV^2 and the range of the masses of the photon-proton system was 45<W<225 GeV. The leading proton production cross section and rates are presented as a function of xL, pT^2, Q^2 and the Bjorken scaling variable, x.

A measurement of the transverse momentum spectra of jets in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}=2.76$ TeV is reported. Jets are reconstructed from charged particles using the anti-$k_{\rm T}$ jet algorithm with jet resolution parameters $R$ of $0.2$ and $0.3$ in pseudo-rapidity $|\eta|<0.5$. The transverse momentum $p_{\rm T}$ of charged particles is measured down to $0.15$ GeV/$c$ which gives access to the low $p_{\rm T}$ fragments of the jet. Jets found in heavy-ion collisions are corrected event-by-event for average background density and on an inclusive basis (via unfolding) for residual background fluctuations and detector effects. A strong suppression of jet production in central events with respect to peripheral events is observed. The suppression is found to be similar to the suppression of charged hadrons, which suggests that substantial energy is radiated at angles larger than the jet resolution parameter $R=0.3$ considered in the analysis. The fragmentation bias introduced by selecting jets with a high $p_{\rm T}$ leading particle, which rejects jets with a soft fragmentation pattern, has a similar effect on the jet yield for central and peripheral events. The ratio of jet spectra with $R=0.2$ and $R=0.3$ is found to be similar in Pb-Pb and simulated PYTHIA pp events, indicating no strong broadening of the radial jet structure in the reconstructed jets with $R<0.3$.

The production of $D^{*\pm}$ mesons in deep inelastic $ep$ scattering has been measured for exchanged photon virtualities $ 5<Q^2<1000 \gev^2 $, using an integrated luminosity of 363 pb$^{-1}$ with the ZEUS detector at HERA. Differential cross sections have been measured and compared to next-to-leading-order QCD calculations. The cross-sections are used to extract the charm contribution to the proton structure functions, expressed in terms of the reduced charm cross section, $\sigma_{\rm red}^{c\bar{c}}$. Theoretical calculations based on fits to inclusive HERA data are compared to the results.

We present measurements of $\Omega$ and $\phi$ production at mid-rapidity from Au+Au collisions at nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energies $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 7.7, 11.5, 19.6, 27 and 39 GeV by the STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). Motivated by the coalescence formation mechanism for these strange hadrons, we study the ratios of $N(\Omega^{-}+\Omega^{+})/(2N(\phi))$. These ratios as a function of transverse momentum ($p_T$) fall on a consistent trend at high collision energies, but start to show deviations in peripheral collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 19.6, 27 and 39 GeV, and in central collisions at 11.5 GeV in the intermediate $p_T$ region of 2.4-3.6 GeV/c. We further evaluate empirically the strange quark $p_T$ distributions at hadronization by studying the $\Omega/\phi$ ratios scaled by the number of constituent quarks. The NCQ-scaled $\Omega/\phi$ ratios show a suppression of strange quark production in central collisions at 11.5 GeV compared to $\sqrt{s_{NN}} >= 19.6$ GeV. The shapes of the presumably thermal strange quark distributions in 0-60% most central collisions at 7.7 GeV show significant deviations from those in 0-10% most central collisions at higher energies. These features suggest that there is likely a change of the underlying strange quark dynamics in the transition from quark-matter to hadronic matter at collision energies below 19.6 GeV.