Measurement of the neutral current cross section and F2 structure function for deep inelastic e+p scattering at HERA

The cross section and the proton structure function F2 for neutral current deep inelastic e+p scattering have been measured with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 30 pb-1. The data were collected in 1996 and 1997 at a centre-of-mass energy of 300 GeV. They cover the kinematic range 2.7 < Q^2 < 30000 GeV2 and 6.10^-5 < x < 0.65. The variation of F2 with x and Q2 is well described by next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD as implemented in the DGLAP evolution equations.