Jet production in ep collisions at low Q(2) and determination of alpha(s)

Abstract

The production of jets is studied in deep-inelastic e(+) p scattering at low negative four momentum transfer squared 5 LT Q(2) LT 100 GeV2 and at inelasticity 0.2 LT y LT 0.7 using data recorded by the H1 detector at HERA in the years 1999 and 2000, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 43.5 pb(-1). Inclusive jet, 2-jet and 3-jet cross sections as well as the ratio of 3-jet to 2-jet cross sections are measured as a function of Q(2) and jet transverse momentum. The 2-jet cross section is also measured as a function of the proton momentum fraction xi. The measurements are well described by perturbative quantum chromodynamics at next-to-leading order corrected for hadronisation effects and are subsequently used to extract the strong coupling as.