Study of the effective transverse momentum of partons in the proton using prompt photons in photoproduction at HERA

The photoproduction of prompt photons, together with an accompanying jet, has been measured with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 38.6 pb^{-1}. A study of the effective transverse momentum, k_T, of partons in the proton, as modelled within the framework of the PYTHIA Monte Carlo, gives a value of k_T = 1.69+/-0.18 ^{+0.18}_{-0.20} GeV for the photon-proton centre-of-mass energy range 134 < W < 251 GeV. This result is in agreement with the previously observed trend in hadron-hadron scattering for k_T to rise with interaction energy.