Evidence of quasi-partonic higher-twist effects in deep inelastic scattering at HERA at moderate Q^2

The combined HERA data for the inclusive deep inelastic scattering (DIS) cross sections for the momentum transfer Q^2 > 1 GeV^2 are fitted within the Dokshitzer–Gribov–Lipatov–Altarelli–Parisi (DGLAP) framework at next-to-leading order (NLO) and next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) accuracy, complemented by a QCD-inspired parameterisation of twist 4 corrections. A modified form of the input parton density functions is also included, motivated by parton saturation mechanism at small Bjorken x and at a low scale. These modifications lead to a significant improvement of the data description in the region of low Q^2 . For the whole data sample, the new benchmark NNLO DGLAP fit yields χ ^2/d.o.f. ≃ 1.19 to be compared to 1.46 resulting from the standard NNLO DGLAP fit. We discuss the results in the context of the parton saturation picture and describe the impact of the higher-twist corrections on the derived parton density functions. The resulting description of the longitudinal proton structure function F_L is consistent with the HERA data. Our estimates of higher-twist contributions to the proton structure functions are comparable to the leading-twist contributions at low Q^2 ≃ 2 GeV ^2 and x ≃ 10^-5 . The x -dependence of the twist 4 corrections obtained from the best fit is consistent with the leading twist 4 quasi-partonic operators, corresponding to an exchange of four interacting gluons in the t -channel.