We report a study of electron proton collisions at very low Q 2 , corresponding to virtual photoproduction at centre of mass energies in the range 100–295 GeV. The distribution in transverse energy of the observed hadrons is much harder than can be explained by soft processes. Some of the events show back-to-back two-jet production at the rate and with the characteristics expected from hard two-body scattering. A subset of the two-jet events have energy in the electron direction consistent with that expected from the photon remnant in resolved photon processes.

Charged particle production has been measured in deep inelastic scattering (DIS) events over a large range of $x$ and $Q^2$ using the ZEUS detector. The evolution of the scaled momentum, $x_p$, with $Q^2,$ in the range 10 to 1280 $GeV^2$, has been investigated in the current fragmentation region of the Breit frame. The results show clear evidence, in a single experiment, for scaling violations in scaled momenta as a function of $Q^2$.

Using the ARGUS detector at the e + e - storage ring DORIS II at DESY, we have observed the decay D s + → η'π + in two decay modes of the η'. We measure the ratio of branching ratios BR(D s + → η'π + )/BR(D s + → Øπ + ) to be 2.5±0.5±0.3.

We report the observation of $\e^+e^-\to \phi\eta$ near $\sqrt{s}$ = 10.58 GeV with 6.5 $\sigma$ significance in the $K^+K^-\gamma\gamma$ final state in a data sample of 224 $fb^{-1}$ collected by the BaBar experiment at the PEP-II $e^+e^-$ storage rings. We measure the restricted radiation-corrected cross section to be $\sigma(\e^+e^- \to \phi \eta) =$$2.1\pm 0.4 (\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.1(\mathrm{syst}) \mathrm{fb}$ within the range $|\cos\theta^*| < 0.8$, where $\theta^*$ is the center-of-mass polar angle of the $\phi$ meson. The $\phi$ meson is required to be in the invariant mass range of 1.008 $< m_{\phi} <$ 1.035 \gevcc. The radiation-corrected cross section in the full $\cos\theta^*$ range is extrapolated to be $2.9\pm 0.5 (\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.1(\mathrm{syst}) \mathrm{fb}$.

Observation of the semileptonic decay of the charmed baryon in the decay channel has been made using the ARGUS detector at the e + e − storage ring DORIS II at DESY. The cross section times branching ratio was found to be .

We have measured the inclusive prompt electron cross section over a wide momentum range (P>0.5 GeV/c) with the PEP-4 TPC detector. The semielectronic branching fractions of thec andb quarks are (9.1±0.9 (stat.)±1.3 (syst.))% and (11.0±1.8±1.0)%, respectively. Theb quark fragmentation function peaks at highz with 〈zb〉=0.74±0.05±0.03. The axial couplings to the neutral current areac=2.3±1.4±1.0 for thec quark andab=−2.0±1.9±0.5 for theb quark.

We have studied the production of prompt muons in hadronic events from e+e− annihilation at a center-of-mass energy of 29 GeV with the PEP4-TPC (Time Projection Chamber) detector. The muon p and pt distributions are well described by a combination of bottom- and charm-quark decays, with fitted semimuonic branching fractions of (15.2±1.9±1.2)% and (6.9±1.1±1.1)%, respectively. The muon spectra imply hard fragmentation functions for both b and c quarks, with 〈z(b quark)〉=0.80±0.05±0.05 and 〈z(c quark)〉=0.60±0.06±0.04. We derive neutral-current axial-vector couplings of a(b quark)=-0.9±1.1±0.3 and a(c quark)=1.5±1.5±0.5 from the forward-backward asymmetries.

We report on a high-statistics measurement of the deuteron spin structure function g1d at a beam energy of 29 GeV in the kinematic range 0.029<x<0.8 and 1<Q2<10 (GeV /c)2. The integral γ1d=∫1g1ddx evaluated at fixed Q2=3 (GeV /c)2 gives 0.042±0.003(stat)±0.004(syst). Combining this result with our earlier measurement of g1p, we find γ1p−γ1n=0.163±0.010(stat)±0.016(syst), which agrees with the prediction of the Bjorken sum rule with O(αs3) corrections, γ1p−γ1n=0.171±0.008. We find the quark contribution to the proton helicity to be Δq=0.30±0.06.

We present a precise measurement of the neutron magnetic form factor G mn at low momentum transfer ( q = 1.69 fm −1 ). From a simultaneous measurement of D ( e , e ′ n ) and D ( e , e ′ p ) we obtain the ratio of neutron and proton cross sections. The neutron detection efficiency is obtained from a separate measurement using tagged neutrons produced by H ( n , p ) n scattering of a monochromatic neutron beam. In contrast to previous determinations of G mn , the present value is insensitive to the systematic uncertainties in the interpretation of the data in terms of G mn and represents a determination of G mn to ±1.7%.

We have measured the spin structure functions g2p and g2d and the virtual photon asymmetries A2p and A2d over the kinematic range 0.02 < x < 0.8 and 0.7 < Q^2 < 20 GeV^2 by scattering 29.1 and 32.3 GeV longitudinally polarized electrons from transversely polarized NH3 and 6LiD targets. Our measured g2 approximately follows the twist-2 Wandzura-Wilczek calculation. The twist-3 reduced matrix elements d2p and d2n are less than two standard deviations from zero. The data are inconsistent with the Burkhardt-Cottingham sum rule if there is no pathological behavior as x->0. The Efremov-Leader-Teryaev integral is consistent with zero within our measured kinematic range. The absolute value of A2 is significantly smaller than the sqrt[R(1+A1)/2] limit.

We have measured the ratio g1pF1p over the range 0.029<x<0.8 and 1.3<Q2<10 (GeV/c)2 using deep-inelastic scattering of polarized electrons from polarized ammonia. An evaluation of the integral ∫01g1p(x, Q2)dx at fixed Q2=3 (GeV/c)2 yields 0.127±0.004(stat)±0.010(syst), in agreement with previous experiments, but well below the Ellis-Jaffe sum rule prediction of 0.160±0.006. In the quark-parton model, this implies Δq=0.27±0.10.

Characteristics of the hadronic final state of diffractive deep inelastic scattering events, ep -> eXp, were studied in the kinematic range 4 < M_X < 35 GeV, 4 < Q^2 < 150 GeV^2, 70 < W < 250 GeV and 0.0003 < x_pom < 0.03 with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 13.8 pb^{-1}. The events were tagged by identifying the diffractively scattered proton using the leading proton spectrometer. The properties of the hadronic final state, X, were studied in its center-of-mass frame using thrust, thrust angle, sphericity, energy flow, transverse energy flow and ``seagull'' distributions. As the invariant mass of the system increases, the final state becomes more collimated, more aligned and more asymmetric in the average transverse momentum with respect to the direction of the virtual photon. Comparisons of the properties of the hadronic final state with predictions from various Monte Carlo model generators suggest that the final state is dominated by qqg states at the parton level.

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.

Differential cross sections for π − p → η 0 n, η 0 → 2 γ have been measured from 20 to 50 GeV for four-momentum transfers − ≲ 3 (GeV/ c ) 2 . The cross sections decrease as a power of momentum and the forward scattering cone shrinks slowly. The parameters of the A 2 trajectory, which is considerably non-linear, have been determined.

This paper reports a search for excited electrons at the HERA electron-proton collider. In a sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 26 nb − , no evidence was found for any resonant state decaying into e − γ , ν W − or e − Z 0 . Limits on the coupling strength of an excited electron have been determined for masses between 45 and 225 GeV. This study also reports the observation of the wide-angle e γ Compton scattering process.

We have searched for the production of a selectron and a squark in $e^+p$ collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 300 GeV using the ZEUS detector at HERA. The selectron and squark are sought in the direct decay into the lightest neutralino in the framework of supersymmetric extensions to the Standard Model which conserve R-parity. No evidence for the production of supersymmetric particles has been found in a data sample corresponding to 46.6~pb$^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity. We express upper limits on the product of the cross section times the decay branching ratios as excluded regions in the parameter space of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model.

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.

The differential cross section $d\sigma/dt$ for elastic $\rho~0$ photoproduction, $\gamma p \rightarrow \rho~0 p (\rho~0 \rightarrow \pi~+ \pi~-)$, has been measured in $ep$ interactions at HERA. The squared four-momentum exchanged at the proton vertex, $t$, has been determined directly by measuring the momentum of the scattered proton using the ZEUS Leading Proton Spectrometer (LPS), a large scale system of silicon micro-strip detectors operating close to the HERA proton beam. The LPS allows the measurement of the momentum of high energy protons scattered at small angles with accuracies of 0.4% for the longitudinal momentum and 5 MeV for the transverse momentum. Photoproduction of $\rho~0$ mesons has been investigated in the interval $0.073< |t| <0.40 GeV~2$, for photon virtualities $Q~2<1 GeV~2$ and photon-proton centre-of-mass energies $W$ between 50 and 100 GeV. In the measured range, the $t$ distribution exhibits an exponential shape with a slope parameter $b = 9.8 \pm 0.8 (stat.) \pm 1.1 (syst.) GeV~{-2}$. The use of the LPS eliminates the contamination from events with diffractive dissociation of the proton into low mass states.

Diffractive dissociation of quasi-real photons at a photon-proton centre of mass energy of W 200 GeV is studied with the ZEUS detector at HERA. The process under consideration is gamma p -> X N, where X is the diffractively dissociated photon system of mass M_X and N is either a proton or a nucleonic system with mass M_N < 2GeV. The cross section for this process in the interval 3 < M_X < 24 GeV relative to the total photoproduction cross section was measured to be sigma~partial_D / sigma_tot = 6.2 +- 0.2(stat) +- 1.4(syst)%. After extrapolating this result to the mass interval of m_phi~2 < M_X~2 < 0.05 W~2 and correcting it for proton dissociation, the fraction of the total cross section attributed to single diffractive photon dissociation, gamma p -> X p, is found to be sigma_SD / sigma_tot = 13.3 +- 0.5(stat) +- 3.6(syst)%. The mass spectrum of the dissociated photon system in the interval 8 < M_X < 24 GeV can be described by the triple pomeron (PPP) diagram with an effective pomeron intercept of alpha_P(0) = 1.12 +- 0.04(stat) +- 0.08(syst). The cross section for photon dissociation in the range 3 < M_X < 8 GeV is significantly higher than that expected from the triple pomeron amplitude describing the region 8 < M_X < 24 GeV. Assuming that this discrepancy is due to a pomeron-pomeron-reggeon (PPR) term, its contribution to the diffractive cross section in the interval 3 < M_X < 24 GeV is estimated to be f_PPR = 26 +- 3(stat) +- 12(syst)%.

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.

We study the processes $e^+ e^-\to 2(\pi^+\pi^-)\pi^0\gamma$, $2(\pi^+\pi^-)\eta\gamma$, $K^+ K^-\pi^+\pi^-\pi^0\gamma$ and $K^+ K^-\pi^+\pi^-\eta\gamma$ with the hard photon radiated from the initial state. About 20000, 4300, 5500 and 375 fully reconstructed events, respectively, are selected from 232 fb$^{-1}$ of BaBar data. The invariant mass of the hadronic final state defines the effective $e^+ e^-$ center-of-mass energy, so that the obtained cross sections from the threshold to about 5 GeV can be compared with corresponding direct \epem measurements, currently available only for the $\eta\pi^+\pi^-$ and $\omega\pi^+\pi^-$ submodes of the $e^+ e^-\to 2(\pi^+\pi^-)\pi^0$ channel. Studying the structure of these events, we find contributions from a number of intermediate states, and we extract their cross sections where possible. In particular, we isolate the contribution from $e^+ e^-\to\omega(782)\pi^+\pi^-$ and study the $\omega(1420)$ and $\omega(1650)$ resonances. In the charmonium region, we observe the $J/\psi$ in all these final states and several intermediate states, as well as the $\psi(2S)$ in some modes, and we measure the corresponding branching fractions.

None

Using the ARGUS detector at the e + e − storage ring DORIS II at DESY, we have made two measurements of the mixing parameter χ d using kaons as flavour tags. Using D ∗+ K ± correlations we found χ d = 0.20 ± 0.13 ± 0.12 and from the study of (D ∗+ ℓ − ) K ± correlations we obtained χ d = 0.19 ± 0.07 ± 0.09. The branching ratio for B → D ∗+ X has been updated: Br( B → D ∗+ X) = (19.6 ± 1.9) %. We have also determined the average multiplicity of charged kaons in B 0 decays to be 0.78 ± 0.08.

A search for the leptonic decays of W bosons produced in the reaction e^+ p\to e^+ W^\pm X at a centre-of-mass energy of 300 GeV has been performed with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 47.7 pb^-1 . Three events consistent with W\to e\nu decay are found, giving a cross section of 0.9 +1.0 -0.7 \pm 0.2 pb, in good agreement with the Standard Model prediction. The corresponding 95% C.L. upper limit on the cross section is 3.3 pb. A search for the decay W\to \mu\nu has a smaller selection efficiency and yields no candidate events. Limits on the cross section for W production with large hadronic transverse momentum have been obtained. A search for high-transverse-momentum isolated tracks in events with large missing transverse momentum yields results in good agreement with Standard Model expectations, in contrast to a recent report by the H1 collaboration of the observation of an excess of such events.

Measurements of the proton structure function $F_2$ for $0.6 < Q^2 < 17 {GeV}^2$ and $1.2 \times 10^{-5} < x <1.9 \times 10^{-3}$ from ZEUS 1995 shifted vertex data are presented. From ZEUS $F_2$ data the slopes $dF_2/d\ln Q^2$ at fixed $x$ and $d\ln F_2/d\ln(1/x)$ for $x < 0.01$ at fixed $Q^2$ are derived. For the latter E665 data are also used. The transition region in $Q^2$ is explored using the simplest non-perturbative models and NLO QCD. The data at very low $Q^2$ $\leq 0.65 {GeV}^2$ are described successfully by a combination of generalised vector meson dominance and Regge theory. From a NLO QCD fit to ZEUS data the gluon density in the proton is extracted in the range $3\times 10^{-5} < x < 0.7$. Data from NMC and BCDMS constrain the fit at large $x$. Assuming the NLO QCD description to be valid down to $Q^2\sim 1 {GeV}^2$, it is found that the $q\bar{q}$ sea distribution is still rising at small $x$ and the lowest $Q^2$ values whereas the gluon distribution is strongly suppressed.