Parametrisation of F_2^gamma at low Q^2 and of sigma(gamma,gamma) and sigma(gamma^*,gamma) at high energies

Abstract

A parametrisation of the real photon structure function F_2^gamma in the low Q^2, low x region is formulated. It includes both the VMD and the QCD components, the latter suitably extrapolated to the low Q^2 region and based on arbitrary parton distributions in the photon. The parametrisation used together with the GRV and GRS' parton densities describes reasonably well the existing high energy data on F_2^gamma, sigma(gamma,gamma) and the low Q^2 data on sigma(gamma^*, gamma). Predictions for sigma(gamma,gamma) and for sigma(gamma^* ,gamma) for energies which may become accessible in future linear colliders are also given.