Muon pair production in p-A, S-U and Pb-Pb collisions has been studied by the NA38 and NA50 collaborations at the CERN SPS. In this paper we present an analysis of the dimuon invariant mass region bet
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.
Lambda production is studied in K − p interactions at 32 GeV/ c . The total Λ cross section is 2.31±0.03 mb . Using the measured Λγ combinations we find that (31±4)% of all Λ's are produced via the Σ 0 → Λγ decay. About 60% of the Λ's are associated with either a N N or K K pair; about 40% of the Λ's are produced through the hypercharge annihiltion reaction K − p→ Λ + π 'a. The two-peak structure of the invariant x distribution can be related to fragmentation processes. The Λ is found to be unpolarized in the target fragmentation region, whereas a transverse polarization is observed for forward produced Λ's. As a function of p ⊥, a polarization effect is measured at medium p ⊥.
The COMPASS Collaboration at CERN has measured the transverse spin azimuthal asymmetry of charged hadrons produced in semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering using a 160 GeV positive muon beam and a transversely polarised NH_3 target. The Collins asymmetry of the proton was extracted in the Bjorken x range 0.003<x<0.7. These new measurements confirm with higher accuracy previous measurements from the COMPASS and HERMES collaborations, which exhibit a definite effect in the valence quark region. The asymmetries for negative and positive hadrons are similar in magnitude and opposite in sign. They are compatible with model calculations in which the u-quark transversity is opposite in sign and somewhat larger than the d-quark transversity distribution function. The asymmetry is extracted as a function of Bjorken $x$, the relative hadron energy $z$ and the hadron transverse momentum p_T^h. The high statistics and quality of the data also allow for more detailed investigations of the dependence on the kinematic variables. These studies confirm the leading-twist nature of the Collins asymmetry.
We have studied inclusiveΔ++ (1232),∑+ (1385), and∑− (1385) baryon resonance production inK−p interactions at 32 GeV/c. The inclusive and topological cross sections are estimated and compared with published results at lower energies. No energy variation of the cross section is observed forΔ++ (1232) and only a slight decrease is seen in case of∑± (1385). The production properties are investigated through longitudinal and transverse momentum distributions. TheΔ++ (1232) is dominantly produced in the target fragmentation region. The∑+ (1385) is produced both in the target fragmentation region and in the central region, while the∑− (1385) is predominantly produced in the central region. About 20% of the final state protons are produced via aΔ++ (1232) decay and about 25% of the Λ produced come from the decay of∑+ (1385) and∑− (1385).
The inclusiveKn, ¶,and\(\bar \Lambda\) production has been studied in a\(\bar pp\) experiment performed in the Mirabelle bubble chamber at an incident beam momentum of 32.1 GeV/c. Total, topological and differential cross sections are presented and compared with those obtained at other energies. The invariant structure functions have been parametrised in the fragmentation region by a power law and are consistent with the expectations based on quark counting rules.
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.
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