Measurement of the proton structure function F2 at low Q2 in QED Compton scattering at HERA

The proton structure function F-2(x, Q(2)) is measured in inelastic QED Compton scattering using data collected with the H1 detector at HERA. QED Compton events are used to access the kinematic range of very low virtualities of the exchanged photon, Q(2), down to 0.5 GeV2, and Bjorken x up to similar to 0.06, a region which has not been covered previously by inclusive measurements at HERA. The results are in agreement with the measurements from fixed target lepton-nucleon scattering experiments. (C) 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.