Production of D*+/-(2010) mesons in diffractive deep inelastic scattering has been measured with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 82 pb^{-1}. Diffractive events were identified by the presence of a large rapidity gap in the final state. Differential cross sections have been measured in the kinematic region 1.5 < Q^2 < 200 GeV^2, 0.02 < y < 0.7, x_{IP} < 0.035, beta < 0.8, p_T(D*+/-) > 1.5 GeV and |\eta(D*+/-)| < 1.5. The measured cross sections are compared to theoretical predictions. The results are presented in terms of the open-charm contribution to the diffractive proton structure function. The data demonstrate a strong sensitivity to the diffractive parton densities.

The exclusive production of $\rho~0$ mesons in deep inelastic electron-proton scattering has been studied using the ZEUS detector. Cross sections have been measured in the range $7 < Q~2 < 25$ GeV$~2$ for $\gamma~*p$ centre of mass (c.m.) energies from 40 to 130 GeV. The $\gamma~*p \rightarrow \rho~0 p$ cross section exhibits a $Q~{-(4.2 \pm 0.8 ~{+1.4}_{-0.5})}$ dependence and both longitudinally and transversely polarised $\rho~0$'s are observed. The $\gamma~*p \rightarrow \rho~0 p$ cross section rises strongly with increasing c.m. energy, when compared with NMC data at lower energy, which cannot be explained by production through soft pomeron exchange. The data are compared with perturbative QCD calculations where the rise in the cross section reflects the increase in the gluon density at low $x$. the gluon density at low $x$.

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.

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.

Diffractive photoproduction of D*+/-(2010) mesons was measured with the ZEUS detector at the ep collider HERA, using an integrated luminosity of 78.6 pb^{-1}. The D* mesons were reconstructed in the kinematic range: transverse momentum p_T(D*) > 1.9 GeV and pseudorapidity |eta(D*)| < 1.6, using the decay D*+ -> D0 pi+_s followed by D0 -> K- pi+ (+c.c.). Diffractive events were identified by a large gap in pseudorapidity between the produced hadronic state and the outgoing proton. Cross sections are reported for photon-proton centre-of-mass energies in the range 130 < W < 300 GeV and for photon virtualities Q^2 < 1 GeV^2, in two ranges of the Pomeron fractional momentum x_pom < 0.035 and x_pom < 0.01. The relative contribution of diffractive events to the inclusive D*+/-(2010) photoproduction cross section is about 6%. The data are in agreement with perturbative QCD calculations based on various parameterisations of diffractive parton distribution functions. The results are consistent with diffractive QCD factorisation.

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.

Elastic $\rho~0$ photoproduction has been measured using the ZEUS detector at HERA. Untagged photoproduction events from $ep$ interactions were used to measure the reaction $\gamma p \rightarrow \rho~0 p$ ($\rho~0 \rightarrow \pi~+ \pi~-$) at photon-proton centre-of-mass energies between 60 and 80GeV and $|t|&lt;0.5$GeV$~2$, where $t$ is the square of the four-momentum transferred at the proton vertex. The differential cross section $d\sigma/dM_{\pi\pi}$, where $M_{\pi\pi}$ is the invariant mass of the two pions, and the integrated cross section, $\sigma_{\gamma p\rightarrow \rho~0 p}$, are presented; the latter was measured to be $14.7\pm 0.4(\mbox{stat.})\pm2.4(\mbox{syst.})\mu\mbox{b}$. The differential cross section $d\sigma/dt$ has an approximately exponential shape; a fit of the type $A~{\prime}_{t} \exp{(-b~{\prime}_{t}|t| + c~{\prime}_{t} t~2)}$ yields a $t$-slope $b~{\prime}_{t}= 9.9\pm1.2(\mbox{stat.})\pm 1.4(\mbox{syst.})\mu\mbox{b}$. The results, when compared to low energy data, show a weak energy dependence of both $\sigma_{\gamma p\rightarrow \rho~0 p}$ and of the $t$-slope. The $\rho~0$ is produced predominantly with transverse polarisation, demonstrating that $s$-channel helicity conservation holds at these energies.