Eur. Phys. J. C (2023) 83: 1082
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-023-12180-9

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

Measurement of jet production in deep inelastic scattering and NNLO determination of the strong coupling at ZEUS

¹ Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, Munich, Germany
² Department of Technology, DST-Inspire Faculty, Sppu, India
³ Department of Nuclear Physics, National Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv, Kyiv, Ukraine
⁴ Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Hamburg, Germany
⁵ INFN Padova, Padua, Italy
⁶ Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Zeuthen, Germany
⁷ Physikalisches Institut der Universität Bonn, Bonn, Germany
⁸ Physics and Astronomy Department, University College London, London, UK
⁹ Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia dell’ Università and INFN, Padua, Italy
¹⁰ INFN Bologna, Bologna, Italy
¹¹ School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
¹² Department of Physics, York University, M3J 1P3, Toronto, ON, Canada
¹³ The Henryk Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakow, Poland
¹⁴ Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland
¹⁵ Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
¹⁶ Affiliated with an Institute Covered by a Current or Former Collaboration Agreement with DESY, Hamburg, Germany
¹⁷ Hamburg University, Institute of Experimental Physics, Hamburg, Germany
¹⁸ Physikalisches Institut of the University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
¹⁹ Department of Particle Physics and Astrophysics, Weizmann Institute, Rehovot, Israel
²⁰ Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology, Longowal, Punjab, India
²¹ Department of Physics, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan
²² Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, School of Physics, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
²³ Department of Physics, Indiana University Bloomington, 47405, Bloomington, IN, USA
²⁴ GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH, Darmstadt, Germany
²⁵ Institute of Particle and Nuclear Studies, KEK, Tsukuba, Japan
²⁶ Department of Physics, Temple University, 19122, Philadelphia, PA, USA
²⁷ Institut für Kernphysik, Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
²⁸ AGH University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Physics and Applied Computer Science, Krakow, Poland
²⁹ Università del Piemonte Orientale, Novara and INFN, Turin, Italy
³⁰ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sussex, BN1 9QH, Brighton, UK
³¹ Department of Physics, Jagellonian University, Krakow, Poland
³² Università di Torino and INFN, Turin, Italy
³³ National Centre for Nuclear Research, Warsaw, Poland
³⁴ National Centre for Particle Physics, Universiti Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
³⁵ Department of Physics, Kobe University, Kobe, Japan
³⁶ University of Bath, Bath, UK
³⁷ Lodz University, Lodz, Poland
³⁸ Rockefeller University, 10065, New York, NY, USA
³⁹ INFN Roma, Rome, Italy
⁴⁰ DESY and University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
⁴¹ DESY, Hamburg, Germany
⁴² University of Houston, 77004, Houston, TX, USA
⁴³ University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
⁴⁴ European X-ray Free-Electron Laser facility GmbH, Hamburg, Germany
⁴⁵ Physikalisches Institut of the University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
⁴⁶ DESY, Hamburg, Germany
⁴⁷ Hamburg University, II. Institute for Theoretical Physics, Hamburg, Germany

^ax florian@lorkow.ski

Received: 8 September 2023
Accepted: 21 October 2023
Published online: 27 November 2023

Abstract

A new measurement of inclusive-jet cross sections in the Breit frame in neutral current deep inelastic scattering using the ZEUS detector at the HERA collider is presented. The data were taken in the years 2004–2007 at a centre-of-mass energy of $318\text{GeV}$ and correspond to an integrated luminosity of $347{\text{pb}}^{-1}$. The jets were reconstructed using the $k_t$-algorithm in the Breit reference frame. They have been measured as a function of the squared momentum transfer, $Q^2$, and the transverse momentum of the jets in the Breit frame, $p_{\perp ,\text{Breit}}$. The measured jet cross sections are compared to previous measurements and to perturbative QCD predictions. The measurement has been used in a next-to-next-to-leading-order QCD analysis to perform a simultaneous determination of parton distribution functions of the proton and the strong coupling, resulting in a value of ${\alpha }_s(M_Z^2)=0.1142\pm 0.0017\text{(experimental/fit)}$${}_{-0.0007}^{+0.0006}\text{(model/parameterisation)}$${}_{-0.0004}^{+0.0006}\text{(scale)}$, whose accuracy is improved compared to similar measurements. In addition, the running of the strong coupling is demonstrated using data obtained at different scales.