Inclusive diffraction with the ZEUS detector at HERA: a comparison among selection methods

Abstract

The diffractive dissociation of virtual photons, gamma*p -> Xp, has been studied with the ZEUS detector at HERA by requiring a large rapidity gap between X and the outgoing proton, by analysing the mass distribution, M_X, of the hadronic final state, as well as by directly tagging the proton. At low values of the proton momentum loss, the diffractive structure function measurements obtained with the three methods are consistent, provided the different treatment and contributions of proton-dissociative events are taken into account.