Probing the parton densities of virtual photons at ep colliders

The feasibility of an experimental determination of the parton distributions of virtual photons at high energy ep colliders is studied in the context of the DESY HERA collider. Recently proposed parton densities of virtual photons are utilized to evaluate the appropriate production processes and their relevant kinematical regions. It is demonstrated that high ET jet production with ET≅5 endash 7 GeV and b bar b production can probe the parton distributions of virtual photons up to virtualities of a few GeV2. A useful leading order parametrization of our proposed photonic parton densities, suitable for further studies of these issues, is presented. copyright 1996 The American Physical Society