Measurement of the cross section for high-pThadron production in the scattering of160−GeV/cmuons off nucleons

The cross section for production of charged hadrons with high transversemomenta in scattering of 160 GeV/c muons off nucleons at low photonvirtualities has been measured at the COMPASS experiment at CERN. The results,which cover transverse momenta from 1.1 to 3.6 GeV/c, are compared to anext-to-leading order perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics (NLO pQCD)calculation in order to evaluate the applicability of pQCD to this process inthe kinematic domain of the experiment. The shape of the calculateddifferential cross section as a function of transverse momentum is found to bein good agreement with the experimental data, but the normalization isunderestimated by NLO pQCD. This discrepancy may point towards the relevance ofterms beyond NLO in the pQCD framework. The dependence of the cross section onthe pseudo-rapidity and on the charge of the hadrons is also discussed.