Charged Particle Multiplicities in Deep Inelastic Scattering at HERA

Using the H1 detector at HERA, charged particle multiplicity distributions in deep inelastice + p scattering have been measured over a large kinematical region. The evolution withW andQ 2 of the multiplicity distribution and of the multiplicity moments in pseudorapiditydomains of varying size is studied in the current fragmentation region of the hadroniccentre-of-mass frame. The results are compared with data from fixed target lepton-nucleon interactions,e + e − annihilations and hadron-hadroncollisions as well as with expectations from QCD based parton models. Fits to the Negative Binomial and Lognormal distributions are presented.