Photoproduction with a Leading Proton at HERA

Abstract

The total cross section for the photoproduction process with a leading proton in the final state has been measured at gamma p centre-of-mass energies W of 91, 181 and 231 GeV. The measured cross sections apply to the kinematic range with the transverse momentum of the scattered proton restricted to p_Tproton <= 0.2 GeV and 0.68 <= z <= 0.88, where z = E_p'/E_p is the scattered proton energy normalised to the beam energy. The cross section dsigma_(gamma p -> Xp')(W,z)/dz is observed to be independent of W and z within the measurement errors and amounts to 8.05 +- 0.06 stat +- 0.89 syst mub on average. The data are well described by a Triple Regge model in which the process is mediated by a mixture of exchanges with an effective Regge trajectory of intercept alpha_i(0)=0.33 +- 0.04 stat +- 0.04 syst. The total cross section for the interaction of the photon with this mixture (gamma alpha_i -> X) can be described by an effective trajectory of intercept alpha_k(0)=0.99 +- 0.01 stat +- 0.05 syst. Predictions based on previous triple Regge analyses of pp-> pX data assuming vertex factorisation are broadly consistent with the gamma p data. The measured cross sections are compared with deep inelastic scattering leading proton data in the same region of z and pT_proton for photon virtuality Q^2 > 2.5 GeV^2. The ratio of the cross section for leading proton production to the total cross section is found to rise with Q^2.