The production of $\phi$ mesons in the reaction $e~{+}p \rightarrow e~{+} \phi p$ ($\phi \rightarrow K~{+}K~{-}$), for $7 < Q~2 < 25$ GeV$~2$ and for virtual photon-proton centre of mass energies ($W$) in the range 42-134 GeV, has been studied with the ZEUS detector at HERA. When compared to lower energy data at similar $Q~2$, the results show that the $\gamma~*p \rightarrow \phid p$ cross section rises strongly with $W$. This behaviour is similar to that previously found for the $\gamma~*p \rightarrow \rho~0 p$ cross section. This strong dependence cannot be explained by production through soft pomeron exchange. It is, however, consistent with perturbative QCD expectations, where it reflects the rise of the gluon momentum density in the proton at small $x$. The ratio of $\sigma (\phi) / \sigma (\rho~0)$, which has previously been determined by ZEUS to be 0.065 $\pm$ 0.013 (stat.) in photoproduction at a mean $W$ of 70 GeV, is measured to be 0.18 $\pm $ 0.05 (stat.) $\pm$ 0.03 (syst.) at a mean $Q~2$ of 12.3 GeV$~2$ and mean $W$ of $\approx$ 100 GeV and is thus approaching at large $Q~2$ the value of 2/9 predicted from the quark charges of the vector mesons and a flavour independent production mechanism.

Inclusive transverse momentum spectra of charged particles in photoproduction events in the laboratory pseudorapidity range $-1.2<\eta<1.4$ have been measured up to $p_{T}=8\GeV $ using the ZEUS detector. Diffractive and non--diffractive reactions have been selected with an average $\gamma p$ centre of mass (c.m.) energy of $\langle W \rangle = 180\GeV$. For diffractive reactions, the $p_{T}$ spectra of the photon dissociation events have been measured in two intervals of the dissociated photon mass with mean values $\langle M_{X} \rangle = 5$ GeV and $10$ GeV. The inclusive transverse momentum spectra fall exponentially in the low $p_{T}$ region. The non--diffractive data show a pronounced high $p_{T}$ tail departing from the exponential shape. The $p_{T}$ distributions are compared to lower energy photoproduction data and to hadron--hadron collisions at a similar c.m. energy. The data are also compared to the results of a next--to--leading order QCD calculation.

Photoproduction of beauty quarks in events with two jets and an electron associated with one of the jets has been studied with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 120pb^-1. The fractions of events containing b quarks, and also of events containing c quarks, were extracted from a likelihood fit using variables sensitive to electron identification as well as to semileptonic decays. Total and differential cross sections for beauty and charm production were measured and compared with next-to-leading-order QCD calculations and Monte Carlo models.

Three-jet production in deep inelastic ep scattering and photoproduction was investigated with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 127 pb-1. Measurements of differential cross sections are presented as functions of angular correlations between the three jets in the final state and the proton-beam direction. These correlations provide a stringent test of perturbative QCD and show sensitivity to the contributions from different colour configurations. Fixed-order perturbative QCD calculations assuming the values of the colour factors C_F, C_A and T_F as derived from a variety of gauge groups were compared to the measurements to study the underlying gauge group symmetry. The measured angular correlations in the deep inelastic ep scattering and photoproduction regimes are consistent with the admixture of colour configurations as predicted by SU(3) and disfavour other symmetry groups, such as SU(N) in the limit of large N.

The production of D*+-(2010) mesons in ep scattering in the range of exchanged photon virtuality 0.05 &lt; Q^2 &lt; 0.7 GeV^2 has been measured with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 82 pb-1. The decay channels D*+ -> D0 pi+ with D0 -> K- pi+ and corresponding antiparticle decay were used to identify D* mesons and the ZEUS beampipe calorimeter was used to identify the scattered electron. Differential D* cross sections as functions of Q^2, inelasticity, y, transverse momentum of the D* meson, p_T(D*), and pseudorapidity of the D* meson, eta(D*), have been measured in the kinematic region 0.02 &lt; y &lt; 0.85, 1.5 &lt; p_T(D*) &lt; 9.0 GeV and |eta(D*)| &lt; 1.5. The measured differential cross sections are in agreement with two different NLO QCD calculations. The cross sections are also compared to previous ZEUS measurements in the photoproduction and DIS regimes.

Photoproduction at HERA is studied in $ep$ collisions, with the ZEUS detector, for $\gamma p$ centre-of-mass energies ranging from 130-270 GeV. A sample of events with two high-$p_T$ jets ($p_T > 6$ GeV, $\eta <1.6$) and a third cluster in the approximate direction of the electron beam is isolated using a clustering algorithm. These events are mostly due to resolved photoproduction. The third cluster is identified as the photon remnant. Its properties, such as the transverse and longitudinal energy flows around the axis of the cluster, are consistent with those commonly attributed to jets, and in particular with those found for the two jets in these events. The mean value of the photon remnant $p_T$ with respect to the beam axis is measured to be $2.1 \pm 0.2$ GeV, which demonstrates substantial mean transverse momenta for the photon remnant.

Diffractive scattering of $\gamma~* p \to X + N$, where $N$ is either a proton or a nucleonic system with $M_N<4$GeV has been measured in deep inelastic scattering (DIS) at HERA. The cross section was determined by a novel method as a function of the $\gamma~* p$ c.m. energy $W$ between 60 and 245GeV and of the mass $M_X$ of the system $X$ up to 15GeV at average $Q~2$ values of 14 and 31GeV$~2$. The diffractive cross section $d\sigma~{diff} /dM_X$ is, within errors, found to rise linearly with $W$. Parameterizing the $W$ dependence by the form $d\sigma~{diff}/dM_X \propto (W~2)~{(2\overline{\mbox{$\alpha_{_{I\hspace{-0.2em}P}}$}} -2)}$ the DIS data yield for the pomeron trajectory $\overline{\mbox{$\alpha_{_{I\hspace{-0.2em}P}}$}} = 1.23 \pm 0.02(stat) \pm 0.04 (syst)$ averaged over $t$ in the measured kinematic range assuming the longitudinal photon contribution to be zero. This value for the pomeron trajectory is substantially larger than $\overline{\mbox{$\alpha_{_{I\hspace{-0.2em}P}}$}}$ extracted from soft interactions. The value of $\overline{\mbox{$\alpha_{_{I\hspace{-0.2em}P}}$}}$ measured in this analysis suggests that a substantial part of the diffractive DIS cross section originates from processes which can be described by perturbative QCD. From the measured diffractive cross sections the diffractive structure function of the proton $F~{D(3)}_2(\beta,Q~2, \mbox{$x_{_{I\hspace{-0.2em}P}}$})$ has been determined, where $\beta$ is the momentum fraction of the struck quark in the pomeron. The form $F~{D(3)}_2 = constant \cdot (1/ \mbox{$x_{_{I\hspace{-0.2em}P}}$})~a$ gives a good fit to the data in all $\beta$ and $Q~2$ intervals with $a = 1.46 \pm 0.04 (stat) \pm

This paper reports the cross section measurements for the process ep $\rightarrow$ e\jpsip for $Q~2 < 4$ GeV$~2$ at $\sqrt s = 296$ GeV, based on an integrated luminosity of about 0.5pb$~{-1}$, using the ZEUS detector. The \jpsiwas detected in its $\rm e~{+}e~{-}$ and $\rm \mu~{+}\mu~{-}$ decay modes. The photoproduction cross section was measured to be $52~{ \ +7}_{-12}\pm 10$nb at an average $\gamma$p centre of mass energy of 67 GeV and $71~{+13}_{-20}\pm 12$nb at 114 GeV. The significant rise of the cross section compared to lower energy measurements is not in agreement with VDM models, but can be described by QCD inspired models if a rise in the gluon momentum density at low $x$ in the proton is assumed.

The differential cross section $d\sigma/dt$ for elastic $\rho~0$ photoproduction, $\gamma p \rightarrow \rho~0 p (\rho~0 \rightarrow \pi~+ \pi~-)$, has been measured in $ep$ interactions at HERA. The squared four-momentum exchanged at the proton vertex, $t$, has been determined directly by measuring the momentum of the scattered proton using the ZEUS Leading Proton Spectrometer (LPS), a large scale system of silicon micro-strip detectors operating close to the HERA proton beam. The LPS allows the measurement of the momentum of high energy protons scattered at small angles with accuracies of 0.4% for the longitudinal momentum and 5 MeV for the transverse momentum. Photoproduction of $\rho~0$ mesons has been investigated in the interval $0.073< |t| <0.40 GeV~2$, for photon virtualities $Q~2<1 GeV~2$ and photon-proton centre-of-mass energies $W$ between 50 and 100 GeV. In the measured range, the $t$ distribution exhibits an exponential shape with a slope parameter $b = 9.8 \pm 0.8 (stat.) \pm 1.1 (syst.) GeV~{-2}$. The use of the LPS eliminates the contamination from events with diffractive dissociation of the proton into low mass states.

The reaction $\gamma p \rightarrow \omega p$ $(\omega \rightarrow \pi~+\pi~-\pi~0$ and $\pi~0\rightarrow\gamma\gamma)$ has been studied in $ep$ interactions using the \mbox{ZEUS} detector at photon-proton centre-of-mass energies between $70$ and $90\uni{GeV}$ and $|t| < 0.6\uni{GeV}~2$, where $t$ is the squared four momentum transferred at the proton vertex. The elastic \ome photoproduction cross section has been measured to be $\sigma_{\gamma p\rightarrow \omega p} = 1.21\pm 0.12\pm 0.23 \mu\mbox{b}$. The differential cross section $d\sigma_{\gamma p\rightarrow \omega p} /d|t|$ has an exponential shape $\mbox{e}~{-b |t|}$ with a slope $b = 10.0\pm 1.2\pm 1.3\uni{GeV}~{-2}$. The angular distributions of the decay pions are consistent with {\it s}-channel helicity conservation. When compared to low energy data, the features of $\omega$ photoproduction as measured at HERA energies are in agreement with those of a soft diffractive process. Previous measurements of the $\rho~0$ and $\phi$ photoproduction cross sections at HERA show a similar behaviour.