Deep-inelastic Electron-Photon Scattering at High Q^2 : Neutral and Charged Current Reactions

Abstract

We present the results of a calculation of deep inelastic electron-photon scattering at a linear collider for very high virtuality of the intermediate gauge boson up to NLO in perturbative QCD. The real photon is produced unpolarized via the Compton back scattering of laser light of the incoming beam. For $Q^2$ values close to the masses squared of the Z and W gauge bosons, the deep inelastic electron-photon scattering process receives important contributions not only from virtual photon exchange but also from the exchange of a Z-boson and a W-boson. We find that the total cross section for center of mass energies above $500 \rm{GeV}$ is at least of ${\cal O}(pb)$ and has an important charged current contribution.