We report a new measurement of the cross section for the production of isolated photons, with transverse energies (ET) above 10 GeV and pseudorapidities |eta| < 2.5, in p pbar collisions at sqrt{s} = 1.8 TeV. The results are based on a data sample of 107.6 pb-1 recorded during 1992--1995 with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron collider. The background, predominantly from jets which fragment to neutral mesons, was estimated using the longitudinal shower shape of photon candidates in the calorimeter. The measured cross section is in good agreement with the next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD calculation for ET > 36 GeV.
A measurement of the cross section for production of single, isolated photons is reported for transverse energies in the range of 10-125 GeV, for two regions of pseudorapidity, |\eta|<0.9 and 1.6<|\eta|<2.5. The data represent 12.9 pb-1 of integrated luminosity accumulated in p-pbar collisions at sqrt{s} = 1.8 TeV and recorded with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider.
Direct photon production cross sections obtained in high statistics p ̄ p and pp collisions at s =24.3 GeV at the CERN SPS are used in a next-to-leading order QCD analysis. From the cross section difference σ( p ̄ p → γX)−σ(pp → γX) and quark distributions measured in deep inelastic scattering, a determination of the strong coupling constant, α s , is performed via a measurement of Λ (4) MS . This measurement yields a value Λ (4) MS = 210±22 ( stat. )±44 ( syst. ) +105 −36 ( theo. ) MeV. The corresponding value of α s expressed at M 2 Z is α s (M 2 Z )=0.1112 ±0.0016 ( stat. ) ±0.0033 ( syst. ) +0.0077 −0.0034 ( theo. ) .