Laser-plasma accelerator group

Abstract:

© 2015 authors. Published by the American Physical Society. We present single-shot measurements of the longitudinal bunch profile from a laser-wakefield accelerator with sub-fs resolution, based on detection of coherent transition radiation in a broad spectral range. A previously developed phase retrieval algorithm enables reconstruction of the bunch profile without prior assumptions about its shape. In this study, a variable-length gas target is used to explore the dynamics of bunch evolution. Our results show that once the laser energy is depleted the time structure of the generated electron beam changes from a single bunch to a double bunch structure, well suited for driver-witness type experiments.

Abstract:

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±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, Q2, 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 αs(MZ)=0.1183±0.0009(exp)±0.0005(model/parameterisation)±0.0012(hadronisation)+0.0037−0.0030(scale). An extraction of xFγZ3 and results on electroweak unification and scaling violations are also presented.