Measurement of the energy dependence of the photon-proton total cross section with the ZEUS detector at HERA

TL;DR

This paper measures how the photon-proton total cross section varies with energy at high energies, providing the first such measurement from a single experiment in this energy range.

Contribution

It presents the first high-energy W dependence measurement of the photon-proton total cross section from a single experiment, using ZEUS data at HERA.

Findings

Determined the W dependence of mplitude with psilon=0.111b10.009 (stat.) b1 0.036 (syst.)

First measurement of mplitude's W dependence from a single experiment at high W

Provides data consistent with theoretical models of photon-proton interactions

Abstract

The energy dependence of the photon-proton total cross section was determined from positron-proton scattering data collected with the ZEUS detector at HERA at three values of the center-of-mass energy, W, of the \gamma p system in the range 194<W<296 GeV. This is the first determination of the W dependence of the photon-proton total cross section from a single experiment at high W. Parameterizing \sigma tot(\gamma p) \alpha W^(2\epsilon), \epsilon = 0.111 \pm 0.009 (stat.) \pm 0.036 (syst.) was obtained.