SCALING VIOLATIONS OF THE PROTON STRUCTURE-FUNCTION F2 AT SMALL X

An analysis is presented of scaling violations of the proton structure function F-2(x, Q(2)) measured with the Hl detector at HERA in the range of Bjorken x values between x = 3 x 10(-4) and 10(-2) for four-momentum transfers Q(2) larger than 8.7 GeV2. The structure function F-2 (X, Q(2)) is observed to rise linearly with In Q(2). Under the assumption that the observed scaling violations at small x less than or equal to 0.01 are described correctly by perturbative QCD, an estimate is obtained of the gluon distribution function G(x, Q(o)(2)) at Q(o)(2) = 20 GeV2