# A QCD analysis of HERA and fixed target structure function data

## 1 INTRODUCTION

With the integrated luminosity of about 50 pb<sup>-1</sup> collected at HERA during the years 1994–1997 a new kinematic domain of large $`x`$ and $`Q^2`$ becomes accessible for the study of deep inelastic scattering in $`ep`$ collisions. Measurements by ZEUS of the $`e^+p`$ single differential neutral current (NC) and charged current (CC) Born cross sections for $`Q^2>200`$ GeV<sup>2</sup> have recently become available .

Standard Model (SM) predictions calculated with, for instance, the parton distribution set CTEQ4  are in good agreement with the NC cross sections but fall below the CC measurements at large $`x`$ and $`Q^2`$. This could be an indication of new physics beyond the SM but might also be due to an imperfect knowledge of the parton densities in this kinematic region. For instance in  it is shown that a modification of the CTEQ4 down quark density yields SM predictions in agreement with the CC $`e^+p`$ data.

To investigate these issues we have performed a global NLO QCD analysis  of structure function data to obtain the parton densities in the proton. A full error analysis provides estimates of the uncertainties in these parton densities, the structure functions and the SM predictions of the NC and CC cross sections.

## 2 QCD ANALYSIS

The data used in the fit are $`F_2^p`$ from ZEUS  and H1  together with $`F_2^p`$, $`F_2^d`$  and $`F_2^d/F_2^p`$  from fixed target experiments. Also included were neutrino data on $`xF_3^{\nu Fe}`$  for $`x>0.1`$ and data on the difference $`x(\overline{d}\overline{u})`$ .

After cuts the data cover a kinematic range of $`10^3<x<0.75`$, $`3<Q^2<5000`$ GeV<sup>2</sup> and $`W^2>7`$ GeV<sup>2</sup>. Both $`F_2^d`$ and $`F_2^d/F_2^p`$ as well as $`xF_3^{\nu Fe}`$ were corrected for nuclear effects using the parameterization of  for deuterium (with an assumed uncertainty of 100%) and that of  for iron (assumed uncertainty 50%).

The QCD predictions for the structure functions were obtained by solving the QCD evolution equations in NLO in the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ scheme . At the scale $`Q_0^2=4`$ GeV<sup>2</sup> the gluon density ($`xg`$), the sea and valence quark densities ($`xS,xu_v,xd_v`$) and the difference $`x(\overline{d}\overline{u})`$ were parameterized in the standard way  (16 free parameters). The strange quark density was taken to be a fraction $`K_s=0.20(\pm 0.03)`$ of the sea . The normalizations of the parton densities were constrained such that the momentum sum rule and the valence quark counting rules are satisfied. The charm and bottom quarks were assumed to be massless and were generated dynamically above the thresholds $`Q_c^2=4(\pm 1)`$ and $`Q_b^2=30`$ GeV<sup>2</sup> respectively. The value of the strong coupling constant was set to $`\alpha _s(M_Z^2)=0.118(\pm 0.005)`$.

Higher twist contributions to $`F_2^p`$ and $`F_2^d`$ were taken into account phenomenologically by describing these structure functions as

$$F_2^{HT}=F_2^{LT}[1+H(x)/Q^2]$$
(1)   
where $`F_2^{LT}`$ obeys the NLO QCD evolution equations and where $`H(x)`$ was parameterized as a fourth degree polynomial in $`x`$ (5 free parameters).

The normalizations of the ZEUS, H1 and NMC data were kept fixed to unity whereas those of the remaining data sets were allowed to float within the quoted normalization errors (7 parameters).

The uncertainties in the parton densities, structure functions and related cross sections were estimated taking into account all correlations. Included in the error calculation are the experimental statistical errors, 57 independent sources of systematic uncertainty (propagated using the technique described in ) and the errors on the input parameters of the fit.

## 3 RESULTS

The fit yielded a good description of the data with a $`\chi ^2`$ of 1540 for 1578 data points and 28 free parameters. The quality of the fit is illustrated in Fig. 1 where we show the fixed target $`F_2^p`$ data for $`x>0.1`$.

The higher twist coefficient $`H(x)`$ in Eq. (1) is found to be negative for $`x<0.5`$ and becomes large and positive at high $`x`$. Our result on the higher twist contribution is very close to that obtained by MRST .

Nuclear effects in neutrino scattering were investigated by calculating the ratios $`xF_3^{\nu Fe}/xF_3^{\nu N}`$ and $`F_2^{\nu Fe}/F_2^{\nu N}`$ of the CCFR data to the QCD predictions of scattering on a free nucleon. Both these ratios do not significantly depend on $`Q^2`$ in accordance with measurements of nuclear effects in muon scattering . The ratios, averaged over $`Q^2`$, are plotted in Fig. 2

and show the typical $`x`$ dependence of nuclear effects, including the rise at large $`x`$ due to Fermi motion. However, within the present accuracy it is not possible to establish whether these nuclear effects are significantly different from those measured in charged lepton scattering (full curves in Fig. 2).

In Fig. 3

are shown the parton densities obtained from the QCD fit (full curves). We have verified that the strange quark density is compatible with the measurements from CCFR  and also that the QCD prediction of $`F_2^c`$ agrees well with the ZEUS data  above $`Q^2=10`$ GeV<sup>2</sup>. This supports the assumption made in this analysis that, at least for $`x>10^3`$, quark mass effects do not spoil the QCD extrapolations to large $`Q^2`$.

Also shown in Fig. 3 are the parton densities from CTEQ4 and CTEQ5 . There is, within errors, good agreement between these results and the QCD fit, although both the present analysis and CTEQ5 yield a slightly harder $`xd_v`$ density than CTEQ4. Bodek and Yang  also obtain a harder $`xd`$ density by modifying CTEQ4 (where the ratio $`d/u0`$ as $`x1`$) such that

$$d/ud^{}/u=d/u+Bx(1+x).$$
(2)   
They find $`B=0.10\pm 0.01`$ which implies that $`d/u0.2`$ as $`x1`$. The $`d/u`$ ratio is shown in Fig. 4.

It is seen that the result from the QCD fit with $`B=0`$ (full curve) is for $`x<0.75`$ close to the modified CTEQ4 distribution with $`B=0.1`$ (dotted curve); if we leave $`B`$ a free parameter in the fit, we obtain $`B=0.02\pm 0.01`$ (statistical error), close to zero. In any case, the large error band clearly indicates that the exact behavior of $`d/u`$ at large $`x`$ is not well constrained. It might go to zero (CTEQ), to a constant (Bodek and Yang) or may even diverge (this analysis) as $`x1`$.

The CC $`e^+p\overline{\nu }X`$ cross section is predominantly sensitive to the $`d`$ quark density

$$d^2\sigma /dxdQ^2(1y)^2(xd+xs)+x\overline{u}+x\overline{c}$$
(3)   
where $`y=Q^2/(xs)`$ with $`s`$ the $`ep`$ center of mass energy ($``$10<sup>5</sup> GeV<sup>2</sup> at HERA). In Fig. 5

we show the ZEUS measurements  of the CC $`e^+p`$ single differential cross sections $`d\sigma /dQ^2`$ and $`d\sigma /dx`$ for $`Q^2>200`$ GeV<sup>2</sup>, normalized to the NLO predictions calculated with the CTEQ4 parton distribution set. The full (dotted) curves correspond to the predictions from the QCD fit (CTEQ5) which both achieve a better description of the data at large $`Q^2`$ and $`x`$ due to an improved determination of the $`d`$ quark density. SM predictions of the $`e^+p`$ NC cross sections, calculated with the parton densities obtained in this analysis, also agree very well with the recent ZEUS data  (not shown).

We conclude that, within the present experimental accuracy, no significant deviations can be observed between the data and the Standard Model predictions.