Photoproduction of large-transverse-momentum hadronic jets

Abstract

High-$p_T$ jet photoproduction can serve as a source of new information not obtainable with hadron beams alone. The pointlike nature of the photon-quark interaction gives rise to a new class of hard-scattering subprocesses so that the high-$p_T$ events will consist of both three- and four-jet topologies. The separation of these two contributions, which can be done on a purely kinematic basis, leads to new tests of the underlying dynamics. Further, by using quantum chromodynamics it is possible to calculate the parton distribution functions of the photon without any phenomenological input parametrizations. This fact can be exploited in the development of techniques for enhancing the fraction of quark-jet or gluon-jet triggers which, in turn, may be of use in searching for differences between quark and gluon jets. Detailed cross-section predictions together with estimates of backgrounds and sources of theoretical uncertainty are presented.