Laser-plasma accelerator group

Abstract:

The production of the neutral strange hadrons K0S, 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.

Abstract:

The production of D* ± (2010) mesons in e± p scattering in the range of exchanged photon virtuality 0.05 < Q2 < 0.7   GeV2 has been measured with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 82 pb-1. The decay channels D* + → D0 π+ with D0 → K- π+ and corresponding antiparticle decay were used to identify D* mesons and the ZEUS beampipe calorimeter was used to identify the scattered electron. Differential D* cross sections as functions of Q2, inelasticity, y, transverse momentum of the D* meson, pT (D*), and pseudorapidity of the D* meson, η (D*), have been measured in the kinematic region 0.02 < y < 0.85, 1.5 < pT (D*) < 9.0   GeV and | η (D*) | < 1.5. The measured differential cross sections are in agreement with two different NLO QCD calculations. The cross sections are also compared to previous ZEUS measurements in the photoproduction and DIS regimes. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Abstract:

Differential inclusive-jet cross sections have been measured for different jet radii in neutral current deep inelastic ep scattering for boson virtualities Q2 > 125   GeV2 with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 81.7 pb-1. Jets were identified in the Breit frame using the kT cluster algorithm in the longitudinally inclusive mode for different values of the jet radius R. Differential cross sections are presented as functions of Q2 and the jet transverse energy, ET, Bjet. The dependence on R of the inclusive-jet cross section has been measured for Q2 > 125 and 500   GeV2 and found to be linear with R in the range studied. Next-to-leading-order QCD calculations give a good description of the measurements for 0.5 ≤ R ≤ 1. A value of αs (MZ) has been extracted from the measurements of the inclusive-jet cross section d σ / d Q2 with R = 1 for Q2 > 500   GeV2: αs (MZ) = 0.1207 ± 0.0014 (stat .)-0.0033+0.0035 (exp .)-0.0023+0.0022 (th .). The variation of αs with ET, Bjet is in a good agreement with the running of αs as predicted by QCD. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Abstract:

Laser wakefield accelerators can produce electric fields of order 10-100 GV/m, suitable for acceleration of electrons to relativistic energies. The wakefields are excited by a relativistically intense laser pulse propagating through a plasma and have a phase velocity determined by the group velocity of the light pulse. Two important effects that can limit the acceleration distance and hence the net energy gain obtained by an electron are diffraction of the drive laser pulse and particle-wake dephasing. Diffraction of a focused ultrashort laser pulse can be overcome by using preformed plasma channels. The dephasing limit can be increased by operating at a lower plasma density, since this results in an increase in the laser group velocity. Here we present detailed results on the generation of GeV-class electron beams using an intense femtosecond laser beam and a 3.3 cm long preformed discharge-based plasma channel [W. P. Leemans et al., Nature Physics 2, 696 (2006)]. The use of a discharge-based waveguide permitted operation at an order of magnitude lower density and 15 times longer distance than in previous experiments that relied on laser preformed plasma channels. Laser pulses with peak power ranging from 10-40 TW were guided over more than 20 Rayleigh ranges and high quality electron beams with energy up to 1 GeV were obtained by channeling a 40 TW peak power laser pulse. The dependence of the electron beam characteristics on capillary properties, plasma density, and laser parameters are discussed. (C) 2007 American Institute of Physics.

Abstract:

Mean values and differential distributions of event-shape variables have been studied in neutral current deep inelastic scattering using an integrated luminosity of 82.2 pb-1 collected with the ZEUS detector at HERA. The kinematic range is 80 < Q2 < 20 480 GeV2 and 0.0024 < x < 0.6, where Q2 is the virtuality of the exchanged boson and x is the Bjorken variable. The data are compared with a model based on a combination of next-to-leading-order QCD calculations with next-to-leading-logarithm corrections and the Dokshitzer-Webber non-perturbative power corrections. The power-correction method provides a reasonable description of the data for all event-shape variables studied. Nevertheless, the lack of consistency of the determination of αs and of the non-perturbative parameter of the model, over(α0, -), suggests the importance of higher-order processes that are not yet included in the model. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.