Dijet production in neutral current deep inelastic scattering at HERA

TL;DR

This paper reports measurements of dijet production in neutral current deep inelastic scattering at HERA, comparing experimental data with next-to-leading-order QCD predictions to test the theory's accuracy across a broad kinematic range.

Contribution

First measurement of dijet cross sections in neutral current deep inelastic scattering at HERA using the ZEUS detector, with comparison to NLO QCD calculations.

Findings

Measured cross sections agree with NLO QCD predictions

Uncertainties in QCD calculations have been thoroughly studied

Results support the validity of perturbative QCD in this regime

Abstract

Dijet cross sections in neutral current deep inelastic ep scattering have been measured in the range $10 < \Q2 < 10^4$ GeV$^2$ with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 38.4 pb$^{-1}$. The cross sections, measured in the Breit frame using the $\kt$ jet algorithm, are compared with next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD calculations using proton parton distribution functions. The uncertainties of the QCD calculations have been studied. The predictions are in reasonable agreement with the measured cross sections over the entire kinematic range.