Measurement of the $\sqrt s$ dependence of jet production at the Cern $\bar pp$ collider

Abstract The production of very large transverse momentum ( p T ) hadron jets has been measured in the UA2 experiment at the CERN p p Collider for s =630 GeV . The inclusive jet production cross sections exhibit a p T -dependent increase with respect to the s =546 GeV data from previous Collider runs. This increase can be described both by QCD calculations and by approximate x T =2 p T /√ s scaling. No significant deviation of the data from QCD predictions is observed at very large p T , placing a lower limit on the characteristic scale Λ c of a hypothetical superstrong contact interaction responsible for the binding of preons in the quark ( Λ c >370 GeV at 95% CL).