Measurement of the charm contribution to the proton structure function at HERA
Author(s)
Sideris, Dimitrios Georgiou
Type
Thesis
Abstract
We have measured the D*± production in deep inelastic scattering via the mode D*± —> D°irf-, D° -> K:fn^:TT±'n±, from positron-proton collisions at HERA, at a centre of mass energy of 300 GeV. For this purpose we have used data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 6.62 pb~l collected in 1995 by the ZEUS detector. We measured the cross section for D* production to be cr(ep —>■ D*± + X) = (12.6 ± lAstat -nLys ^ 0^br)^ in the restricted kinematical region 1.5 < Pt{D*) < 15GeV/c, \r](D*)\ < 1.5, 1 < Q2 < 600GeV2 and 0.02 < y < 0.7.
We have extracted the charm structure function Ef in bins of Bjorken x and Q2 by extrapolating the measured region of the phase space to the whole, using the RAPGAP event generator that simulates D* production in DIS via the boson-gluon fusion process. The F2C measurement was found to be in agreement with theoretical models using fixed or variable active flavour number to predict FI.
We have extracted the charm structure function Ef in bins of Bjorken x and Q2 by extrapolating the measured region of the phase space to the whole, using the RAPGAP event generator that simulates D* production in DIS via the boson-gluon fusion process. The F2C measurement was found to be in agreement with theoretical models using fixed or variable active flavour number to predict FI.
Date Issued
1998
Date Awarded
1998
Copyright Statement
Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial NoDerivatives Licence
Advisor
Miller, Dr. Don
Publisher Department
Department of Physics
Publisher Institution
Imperial College London
Qualification Level
Doctoral
Qualification Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)