Measurement of Inclusive Jet Production in Deep-Inelastic Scattering at High Q^2 and Determination of the Strong Coupling

Abstract

Inclusive jet production is studied in neutral current deep-inelastic positron-proton scattering at large four momentum transfer squared Q^2>150 GeV^2 with the H1 detector at HERA. Single and double differential inclusive jet cross sections are measured as a function of Q^2 and of the transverse energy E_T of the jets in the Breit frame. The measurements are found to be well described by calculations at next-to-leading order in perturbative QCD. The running of the strong coupling is demonstrated and the value of alpha_s(M_Z) is determined. The ratio of the inclusive jet cross section to the inclusive neutral current cross section is also measured and used to extract a precise value for alpha_s(M_Z)=0.1193+/-0.0014(exp.)^{+0.0047}_{-0.0030}(th.)+/-0.0016(pdf).