An analysis of the longitudinal structure function at next-to-leading order approximation at small-$x$

Abstract

The longitudinal structure function is considered at the next-to-leading order approximation using the expansion method, as defined by M.B.Gay Ducati and P.B.Goncalves [Phys.Lett.B {\bf390}, 401 (1997)] and further developed by Jingxuan Chen et al., [Chin.Phys.C {\bf48}, 063104 (2024)]. This method provides results for a wide range of $x$ and $Q^2$ values. It is observed that the behavior of the longitudinal structure function depends on the fractional momentum carried by gluons at low $x$. The extracted longitudinal structure functions $F_L(x,Q^2)$ are in line with data from the H1 Collaboration [V. Andreev et al. (H1 Collaboration), Eur. Phys. J. C 74, 2814 (2014)] and the CT18 parametrization method [T.-J. Hou et al., Phys. Rev. D 103, 014013 (2021)].