High energy factorization predictions for the charm structure function F2^c at HERA

Abstract

High energy factorization predictions for F2^c are derived using BFKL descriptions of the proton structure function F2 at HERA. The model parameters are fixed by a fit of F2 at small x. Two different approaches of the non perturbative proton input are shown to correspond to the factorization at the gluon or quark level, respectively. The predictions for F2^c are in agreement with the data within the present error bars. However, the photon wave-function formulation (factorization at quark level) predicts significantly higher F2^c than both gluon factorization and a next-leading order DGLAP model.