Professor Amanda Cooper-Sarkar

Abstract:

Diffractive photoproduction of D*^±(2010) mesons was measured with the ZEUS detector at the ep collider HERA, using an integrated luminosity of 78.6 pb^-1. The D* mesons were reconstructed in the kinematic range: transverse momentum pT(D*) > 1.9 GeV and pseudorapidity |η(D*)|<1.6, using the decay D*⁺→D⁰π⁺ s followed by D⁰→K^-π⁺(+c.c.). Diffractive events were identified by a large gap in pseudorapidity between the produced hadronic state and the outgoing proton. Cross sections are reported for photon-proton centre-of-mass energies in the range 130 < W < 300 GeV and for photon virtualities Q² < 1 GeV², in two ranges of the Pomeron fractional momentum xIP<0.035 and xIP<0.01. The relative contribution of diffractive events to the inclusive D*^±(2010) photoproduction cross section is about 6%. The data are in agreement with perturbative QCD calculations based on various parameterisations of diffractive parton distribution functions. The results are consistent with diffractive QCD factorisation. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.

Abstract:

The distribution of the azimuthal angle of charged and neutral hadrons relative to the lepton plane has been studied for neutral current deep inelastic ep scattering using an integrated luminosity of 45 pb^-1 taken with the ZEUS detector. The kinematic range is 1002<8000 GeV ², 0.22 is the virtuality of the exchanged boson, y is the inelasticity and x is the Bjorken variable. The measurements were made in the hadronic centre-of-mass system. The analysis exploits the energy-flow method, which allows the measurement to be made over a larger range of pseudorapidity compared to previous results. The dependence of the moments of the azimuthal distributions on the pseudorapidity and minimum transverse energy of the final-state hadrons are presented. Although the predictions from next-to-leading-order QCD describe the data better than do the Monte Carlo models incorporating leading-logarithm parton showers, they still fail to describe the magnitude of the asymmetries. This suggests that higher-order calculations may be necessary to describe these data. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.

Abstract:

The production of the neutral strange hadrons K⁰ S, Λ and Λ has been measured in ep collisions at HERA using the ZEUS detector. Cross sections, baryon-to-meson ratios, relative yields of strange and charged light hadrons, Λ (Λ) asymmetry and polarization have been measured in three kinematic regions: Q² > 25 GeV²; 5 < Q² < 25 GeV²; and in photoproduction (Q ² 0). In photoproduction the presence of two hadronic jets, each with at least 5 GeV transverse energy, was required. The measurements agree in general with Monte Carlo models and are consistent with measurements made at e⁺e^- colliders, except for an enhancement of baryon relative to meson production in photoproduction. © Springer-Verlag / Società Italiana di Fisica 2007.