Determination of alpha_s from F_2^p at HERA

Abstract

We compute the proton structure function F_2^p at small x and large Q^2 at next-to-leading order in alpha_s(Q^2), including summations of all leading and subleading logarithms of Q^2 and 1/x in a way consistent with momentum conservation. We perform a detailed comparison to the 1993 HERA data, and show that they may be used to determine alpha_s(M_Z^2)=0.120 pm 0.005(exp) pm 0.009(th). The theoretical error is dominated by the renormalization and factorization scheme ambiguities.

24 pages, TeX with harvmac and epsf, 10 figures in compressed postscript. Final (published) version