The Longitudinal Proton Structure Function at HERA

TL;DR

This paper reports on the measurement of the longitudinal proton structure function (FL) at HERA, using multiple energies to improve understanding of proton structure in deep inelastic scattering.

Contribution

It presents a combined analysis of H1 and ZEUS data at different energies to measure FL with increased precision and explores its impact on proton PDFs.

Findings

FL measured across a range of Q^2 values

Combined data improves statistical accuracy

Insights into proton structure functions

Abstract

The longitudinal proton structure function (FL) has been measured at the HERA collider in positron-proton deep inelastic scattering collisions with the H1 and ZEUS detectors. This measurement is achieved by using multiple center-of-mass energies (sqrt(s)) via a reduction of the proton beam energy. The energies used for this measurement are sqrt(s) = 318, 251, 225 GeV. The kinematic region studied is 2.5<Q^2<800 GeV^2. H1 and ZEUS data have been combined to increase statistical precision and reduce systematic effects. The impact of the low proton beam energy cross sections to the proton PDFs is being investigated.