Inclusive phi-meson production in neutral current deep inelastic e+p scattering has been measured with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 45 pb^{-1}. The phi mesons were studied in the range 10<Q2<100 GeV2, where Q2 is the virtuality of the exchanged photon, and in restricted kinematic regions in the transverse momentum, p_T, pseudorapidity, eta, and the scaled momentum in the Breit frame, x_p. Monte Carlo models with the strangeness-suppression factor as determined by analyses of e+e- annihilation events overestimate the cross sections. A smaller value of the strangeness-suppression factor reduces the predicted cross sections, but fails to reproduce the shapes of the measured differential cross sections. High-momentum phi mesons in the current region of the Breit frame give the first direct evidence for the strange sea in the proton at low x.
The production cross sections for the Λ, Σ0, Ξ−, Σ0 (1385), Ξ0 (1530) and Ω− hyperons have been measured, both in the continuum and in direct ϒ decays. Baryon rates in direct ϒ decays are enhanced by a factor of 2.5 or more compared to the continuum. Such a large baryon enhancement cannot be explained by standard fragmentation models. The strangeness suppression for baryons and mesons turns out to be the same. A strong suppression of spin 3/2 states is observed.
The production of neutral strange hadrons is investigated using deep-inelastic scattering events measured with the H1 detector at HERA. The measurements are made in the phase space defined by the negative four-momentum transfer squared of the photon 2 < Q^2 < 100 GeV^2 and the inelasticity 0.1 < y < 0.6. The K_s and Lambda production cross sections and their ratios are determined. K_s production is compared to the production of charged particles in the same region of phase space. The Lambda - anti-Lambda asymmetry is also measured and found to be consistent with zero. Predictions of leading order Monte Carlo programs are compared to the data.
The first measurement of inclusive Ds+- photoproduction at HERA has been performed with the ZEUS detector for photon-proton centre-of-mass energies 130 < W < 280 GeV. The measured cross section for 3 < pt(Ds) < 12 GeV and |eta(Ds)|< 1.5 is sigma(ep -> Ds X) = 3.79 +- 0.59 (stat.) +0.26-0.46 (syst.) +- 0.94 (br.) nb, where the last error arises from the uncertainty in the Ds decay branching ratio. The measurements are compared with inclusive D*+- photoproduction cross sections in the same kinematic region and with QCD calculations. The Ds cross sections lie above a fixed-order next-to-leading order calculation and agree better with a tree-level O(alpha,alpha_s^3) calculation that was tuned to describe the ZEUS D* cross sections. The ratio of Ds+- to D*+- cross sections is 0.41 +- 0.07 (stat.) +0.03-0.05 (syst.) +- 0.10 (br.). From this ratio, the strangeness-suppression factor in charm photoproduction, within the LUND string fragmentation model, has been calculated to be gamma_s = 0.27 +- 0.05 +- 0.07 (br.). The cross-section ratio and gamma_s are in good agreement with those obtained in charm production in e+e- annihilation.
Production of Sigma- and Lambda(1520) in hadronic Z decays has been measured using the DELPHI detector at LEP. The Sigma- is directly reconstructed as a charged track in the DELPHI microvertex detector and is identified by its Sigma -> n pi decay leading to a kink between the Sigma- and pi-track. The reconstruction of the Lambda(1520) resonance relies strongly on the particle identification capabilities of the barrel Ring Imaging Cherenkov detector and on the ionisation loss measurement of the TPC. Inclusive production spectra are measured for both particles. The production rates are measured to be <N_{Sigma-}/N_{Z}^{had}> = 0.081 +/- 0.002 +/- 0.010, <N_{Lambda(1520)}/N_{Z}^{had}> = 0.029 +/- 0.005 +/- 0.005. The production rate of the Lambda(1520) suggests that a large fraction of the stable baryons descend from orbitally excited baryonic states. It is shown that the baryon production rates in Z decays follow a universal phenomenological law related to isospin, strangeness and mass of the particles.
The inclusive production cross sections of the strange vector mesons K*0, K*0bar, and phi have been measured in interactions of 920 GeV protons with C, Ti, and W targets with the HERA-B detector at the HERA storage ring. Differential cross sections as a function of rapidity and transverse momentum have been measured in the central rapidity region and for transverse momenta up to pT=3.5 GeV/c. The atomic number dependence is parametrised as sigma(pA) = sigma(pN)*A**alpha, where sigma(pN) is the proton-nucleon cross section. Within the phase space accessible, alpha(K*0) = 0.86+/-0.03, alpha(K*0bar) = 0.87+/-0.03, and alpha(phi) = 0.96+/-0.02. The total proton-nucleon cross sections, determined by extrapolating the differential measurements to full phase space, are sigma(pN->K*0) = 5.06+/-0.54 mb, sigma(pN->K*0bar) = 4.02+/-0.45 mb, and sigma(pN->phi) = 1.17+/-0.11 mb. The Cronin effect is observed for the first time for vector mesons containing strange quarks/ compared to the measurements of Cronin et al. for K+- mesons, the measured values of alpha for phi mesons coincide with those of K- mesons for all transverse momenta, while the enhancement for K*0 / K*0bar mesons is smaller.
We report measurements of the exclusive electroproduction of $K^+\Lambda$ and $K^+\Sigma^0$ final states from a proton target using the CLAS detector at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. The separated structure functions $\sigma_T$, $\sigma_L$, $\sigma_{TT}$, and $\sigma_{LT}$ were extracted from the $\Phi$- and $\epsilon$-dependent differential cross sections taken with electron beam energies of 2.567, 4.056, and 4.247 GeV. This analysis represents the first $\sigma_L/\sigma_T$ separation with the CLAS detector, and the first measurement of the kaon electroproduction structure functions away from parallel kinematics. The data span a broad range of momentum transfers from $0.5\leq Q^2\leq 2.8$ GeV$^2$ and invariant energy from $1.6\leq W\leq 2.4$ GeV, while spanning nearly the full center-of-mass angular range of the kaon. The separated structure functions reveal clear differences between the production dynamics for the $\Lambda$ and $\Sigma^0$ hyperons. These results provide an unprecedented data sample with which to constrain current and future models for the associated production of strangeness, which will allow for a better understanding of the underlying resonant and non-resonant contributions to hyperon production.
Results on inclusive ϕ production inK−p interactions at 110 GeV/c are presented. The production cross section is found to be larger than in πp andpp interactions at similar energies, suggesting OZI allowed\(s\bar s\) fusion to be the dominant mechanism in ϕ production. Thex distributions of ϕ and\(\bar K^{*0} \) are found to be similar to each other over the entirex range suggesting an overall strangeness suppression factor of 0.20±0.04 in the sea to be the dominant source of the difference in the cross section for ϕ and\(\bar K^{*0} \). There is no evidence of a narrowφπ− state around 2.1 GeV/c2 as suggested byK+ experiments, but there is some excess of events in the region 1.94−1.98 GeV/c2 consistent with theF-meson mass as observed ine+e− experiments.
We present results on inclusive φ meson production in K + p interactions at 70 GeV/ c in the kaon fragmentation x >0.2 region. Comparison with other data on φ meson production in K ± and p induced reactions provides evidence that the strange valence-quark fragmentation or recombination processes play the dominant role in the K ± → φ transitions. Arguments are presented that the kaon valence strange s -quark carries a much higher momentum fraction than the u-quark. Evidence for the previously observed narrow φπ + state at mass ∼2.1 GeV is discussed.
The production of a W boson in association with a single charm quark is studied using 4.6 fb^-1 of pp collision data at sqrt(s)=7 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. In events in which a W boson decays to an electron or muon, the charm quark is tagged either by its semileptonic decay to a muon or by the presence of a charmed meson. The integrated and differential cross sections as a function of the pseudorapidity of the lepton from the W-boson decay are measured. Results are compared to the predictions of next-to-leading-order QCD calculations obtained from various parton distribution function parameterisations. The ratio of the strange-to-down sea-quark distributions is determined to be 0.96 +0.26 -0.30 at Q^2=1.9 GeV^2, which supports the hypothesis of an SU(3)-symmetric composition of the light-quark sea. Additionally, the cross-section ratio sigma(W^+ + bar{c})/sigma(W^- + c) is compared to the predictions obtained using parton distribution function parameterisations with different assumptions about the s-bar{s} quark asymmetry.
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