Hadron transverse momentum distributions in muon deep inelastic scattering at 160 GeV/c

Abstract

Multiplicities of charged hadrons produced in deep inelastic muon scattering off a 6LiD target have been measured as a function of the DIS variables x Bj , Q 2, W 2 and the final state hadron variables p T and z. The $p_{T}^{2}$ distributions are fitted with a single exponential function at low values of $p_{T}^{2}$ to determine the dependence of $\langle p_{T}^{2} \rangle$ on x Bj , Q 2, W 2 and z. The z-dependence of $\langle p_{T}^{2} \rangle$ is shown to be a potential tool to extract the average intrinsic transverse momentum squared of partons, $\langle k_{\perp}^{2} \rangle$ , as a function of x Bj and Q 2 in a leading order QCD parton model.