A combination is presented of the inclusive deep inelastic cross sections measured by the H1 and ZEUS Collaborations in neutral and charged current unpolarised ep scattering at HERA during the period 1994-2000. The data span six orders of magnitude in negative four-momentum-transfer squared, Q^2, and in Bjorken x. The combination method used takes the correlations of systematic uncertainties into account, resulting in an improved accuracy. The combined data are the sole input in a NLO QCD analysis which determines a new set of parton distributions HERAPDF1.0 with small experimental uncertainties. This set includes an estimate of the model and parametrisation uncertainties of the fit result.
In a joint effort the CERES/NA45 and TAPS collaborations have measured low-mass electron pairs in p–Be and p–Au collisions at 450 GeV/c at the CERN SPS. In the range covered up to ≈ 1.5 GeV/c2 the mass spectra from p–Be and p–Au collisions are well explained by electron pairs from decays of neutral mesons. For p–Au our result is new. For p–Be, the simultaneously measured electron pair inclusive pair spectrum in which instrumental uncertainties are highly reduced. We confirm the earlier finding of HELIOS-1 with significantly reduced systematic uncertainties of 23% in the mass range below 450 MeV/c2, and of 28% in the mass range above 750 MeV/c2 at 90% confidence limit. Any unconventional source of electron pairs is limited by these error margins as the percentage fraction of the hadronic contribution.
A combination is presented of all inclusive deep inelastic cross sections previously published by the H1 and ZEUS collaborations at HERA for neutral and charged current $e^{\pm}p$ scattering for zero beam polarisation. The data were taken at proton beam energies of 920, 820, 575 and 460 GeV and an electron beam energy of 27.5 GeV. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of about 1 fb$^{-1}$ and span six orders of magnitude in negative four-momentum-transfer squared, $Q^2$, and Bjorken $x$. The correlations of the systematic uncertainties were evaluated and taken into account for the combination. The combined cross sections were input to QCD analyses at leading order, next-to-leading order and at next-to-next-to-leading order, providing a new set of parton distribution functions, called HERAPDF2.0. In addition to the experimental uncertainties, model and parameterisation uncertainties were assessed for these parton distribution functions. Variants of HERAPDF2.0 with an alternative gluon parameterisation, HERAPDF2.0AG, and using fixed-flavour-number schemes, HERAPDF2.0FF, are presented. The analysis was extended by including HERA data on charm and jet production, resulting in the variant HERAPDF2.0Jets. The inclusion of jet-production cross sections made a simultaneous determination of these parton distributions and the strong coupling constant possible, resulting in $\alpha_s(M_Z)=0.1183 \pm 0.0009 {\rm(exp)} \pm 0.0005{\rm (model/parameterisation)} \pm 0.0012{\rm (hadronisation)} ^{+0.0037}_{-0.0030}{\rm (scale)}$. An extraction of $xF_3^{\gamma Z}$ and results on electroweak unification and scaling violations are also presented.
Forum