https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s2006-02574-x
Theoretical Physics
Measuring the photon fragmentation function at HERA
1
Institute for Theoretical Physics, ETH Zürich, 8093, Zürich, Switzerland
2
Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057, Zürich, Switzerland
* e-mail: gehra@itp.phys.ethz.ch
Received:
5
April
2006
Published online:
16
June
2006
The production of final state photons in deep inelastic scattering originates from photon radiation off leptons or quarks involved in the scattering process. Photon radiation off quarks involves a contribution from the quark-to-photon fragmentation function, corresponding to the non-perturbative transition of a hadronic jet into a single, highly energetic photon accompanied by some limited hadronic activity. Up to now, this fragmentation function was measured only in electron–positron annihilation at LEP. We demonstrate by a dedicated parton-level calculation that a competitive measurement of the quark-to-photon fragmentation function can be obtained in deep inelastic scattering at HERA. Such a measurement can be obtained by studying the photon energy spectra in γ+(0+1)-jet events, where γ denotes a hadronic jet containing a highly energetic photon (the photon jet). Isolated photons are then defined from the photon jet by imposing a minimal photon energy fraction. For this so-called democratic clustering approach, we study the cross sections for isolated γ+(0+1)-jet and γ+(1+1)-jet production as well as for the inclusive isolated photon production in deep inelastic scattering.
© Springer-Verlag, 2006
