In the present paper we address double parton scattering (DPS) in quasireal photon-proton interactions. By using electromagnetic and hadronic models of the photon light cone wave functions, we compute the so-called effective cross section, σeffγp which allows us to calculate the DPS contribution to these processes under dedicated assumptions. In particular, for the four-jet photoproduction in HERA kinematics we found a sizeable DPS contribution. We show that if the photon virtuality Q2 could be measured and thus the dependence of σeffγp on such a parameter exposed, information on the transverse distance between partons active in proton could be extracted. To this aim, we set lower limits on the integrated luminosity needed to observe such an effect which would allow the extraction of novel information on the proton structure.

• Received 16 April 2021
• Accepted 14 December 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.105.L011501

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP³.

Published by the American Physical Society