Inclusive jet cross sections in the Breit frame in neutral current deep inelastic scattering at HERA and determination of αs

Abstract

Inclusive jet differential cross sections have been measured in neutral current deep inelastic e+p scattering for boson virtualities Q2>125 GeV2. The data were taken using the ZEUS detector at HERA and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 38.6 pb−1. Jets were identified in the Breit frame using the longitudinally invariant kT cluster algorithm. Measurements of differential inclusive jet cross sections are presented as functions of jet transverse energy (EBT,jet), jet pseudorapidity and Q2, for jets with EBT,jet>8 GeV. Next-to-leading-order QCD calculations agree well with the measurements both at high Q2 and high EBT,jet. The value of αs(MZ), determined from an analysis of dσ/dQ2 for Q2>500 GeV2, is αs(MZ)=0.1212±0.0017(stat.)+0.0023−0.0031(syst.)+0.0028−0.0027(th.).