Measurement of the photon structure function F2γin the reactione+e-→e+e- + hadrons at LEP

We present measurements of the hadronic photon structure function F2γ(x), in two Q2 ranges with mean values of 5.9 GeV2 and 14.7 GeV2. The data were taken by the OPAL experiment at LEP, with √s close to the Z0 mass and correspond to an integrated e+e- luminosity of 44.8 pb-1. In the context of a QCD-based model we find the quark transverse momentum cutoff separating the vector meson dominance (VMD) and perturbative QCD regions to be 0.27 ± 0.10 GeV. We confirm that there is a significant pointlike component of the photon when the probe photon has Q2 > 4 GeV2. Our measurements extend to lower values of x than any previous experiment, and no increase of F2γ(x) is observed. (orig.)