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This paper presents our first measurement of the F 2 structure function in neutral-current, deep inelastic scattering using the ZEUS detector at HERA, the ep colliding beam facility at DESY. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 24.7 nb −1 . Results are presented for data in range of Q 2 from 10 GeV 2 to 4700 GeV 2 and Bjorken x down to 3.0 × 10 −4 . The F 2 structure function increases rapidly as x decreases.

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Deep inelastic charged--current reactions have been studied in $e~+p$ and $e~-p$ collisions at a center of mass energy of about $300\,\gev$ in the kinematic region $Q~2\greater200\,\gev~2$ and $x\greater0.006$ using the ZEUS detector at HERA. The integrated cross sections for $Q~2\greater200\,\gev~2$ are found to be $\sigep=30.3\,{}~{+5.5}_{\mns4.2}\,{}~{+1.6}_{\mns2.6}\,{\rm pb}$ and $\sigem=54.7\,{}~{+15.9}_{\mns\chax 9.8}\,{}~{+2.8}_{\mns3.4}\,{\rm pb}$. Differential cross sections have been measured as functions of the variables $x$, $y$ and $Q~2$. From the measured differential cross sections $d\sigma/dQ~2$, the $W$ boson mass is determined to be $M_W=79\,{}~{+8} _{-7}{}~{+4}_{-4}\,\gev$. Measured jet rates and transverse energy profiles agree with model predictions. A search for charged--current interactions with a large rapidity gap yielded one candidate event, corresponding to a cross section of $\sigep(Q~2\greater200\,\gev~2;\eta_{\rm max}<2.5)=0.8\,{}_{-0.7}~ {+1.8}\,\pm0.1\,{\rm pb}$.

The exclusive production of $\rho~0$ mesons in deep inelastic electron-proton scattering has been studied using the ZEUS detector. Cross sections have been measured in the range $7 < Q~2 < 25$ GeV$~2$ for $\gamma~*p$ centre of mass (c.m.) energies from 40 to 130 GeV. The $\gamma~*p \rightarrow \rho~0 p$ cross section exhibits a $Q~{-(4.2 \pm 0.8 ~{+1.4}_{-0.5})}$ dependence and both longitudinally and transversely polarised $\rho~0$'s are observed. The $\gamma~*p \rightarrow \rho~0 p$ cross section rises strongly with increasing c.m. energy, when compared with NMC data at lower energy, which cannot be explained by production through soft pomeron exchange. The data are compared with perturbative QCD calculations where the rise in the cross section reflects the increase in the gluon density at low $x$. the gluon density at low $x$.

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.

The production of $\phi$ mesons in the reaction $e~{+}p \rightarrow e~{+} \phi p$ ($\phi \rightarrow K~{+}K~{-}$), for $7 < Q~2 < 25$ GeV$~2$ and for virtual photon-proton centre of mass energies ($W$) in the range 42-134 GeV, has been studied with the ZEUS detector at HERA. When compared to lower energy data at similar $Q~2$, the results show that the $\gamma~*p \rightarrow \phid p$ cross section rises strongly with $W$. This behaviour is similar to that previously found for the $\gamma~*p \rightarrow \rho~0 p$ cross section. This strong dependence cannot be explained by production through soft pomeron exchange. It is, however, consistent with perturbative QCD expectations, where it reflects the rise of the gluon momentum density in the proton at small $x$. The ratio of $\sigma (\phi) / \sigma (\rho~0)$, which has previously been determined by ZEUS to be 0.065 $\pm$ 0.013 (stat.) in photoproduction at a mean $W$ of 70 GeV, is measured to be 0.18 $\pm $ 0.05 (stat.) $\pm$ 0.03 (syst.) at a mean $Q~2$ of 12.3 GeV$~2$ and mean $W$ of $\approx$ 100 GeV and is thus approaching at large $Q~2$ the value of 2/9 predicted from the quark charges of the vector mesons and a flavour independent production mechanism.

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.

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.

Diffractive scattering of $\gamma~* p \to X + N$, where $N$ is either a proton or a nucleonic system with $M_N<4$GeV has been measured in deep inelastic scattering (DIS) at HERA. The cross section was determined by a novel method as a function of the $\gamma~* p$ c.m. energy $W$ between 60 and 245GeV and of the mass $M_X$ of the system $X$ up to 15GeV at average $Q~2$ values of 14 and 31GeV$~2$. The diffractive cross section $d\sigma~{diff} /dM_X$ is, within errors, found to rise linearly with $W$. Parameterizing the $W$ dependence by the form $d\sigma~{diff}/dM_X \propto (W~2)~{(2\overline{\mbox{$\alpha_{_{I\hspace{-0.2em}P}}$}} -2)}$ the DIS data yield for the pomeron trajectory $\overline{\mbox{$\alpha_{_{I\hspace{-0.2em}P}}$}} = 1.23 \pm 0.02(stat) \pm 0.04 (syst)$ averaged over $t$ in the measured kinematic range assuming the longitudinal photon contribution to be zero. This value for the pomeron trajectory is substantially larger than $\overline{\mbox{$\alpha_{_{I\hspace{-0.2em}P}}$}}$ extracted from soft interactions. The value of $\overline{\mbox{$\alpha_{_{I\hspace{-0.2em}P}}$}}$ measured in this analysis suggests that a substantial part of the diffractive DIS cross section originates from processes which can be described by perturbative QCD. From the measured diffractive cross sections the diffractive structure function of the proton $F~{D(3)}_2(\beta,Q~2, \mbox{$x_{_{I\hspace{-0.2em}P}}$})$ has been determined, where $\beta$ is the momentum fraction of the struck quark in the pomeron. The form $F~{D(3)}_2 = constant \cdot (1/ \mbox{$x_{_{I\hspace{-0.2em}P}}$})~a$ gives a good fit to the data in all $\beta$ and $Q~2$ intervals with $a = 1.46 \pm 0.04 (stat) \pm