Observation of the Hadronic Final State Charge Asymmetry in High Q^2 Deep-Inelastic Scattering at HERA

A first measurement is presented of the charge asymmetry in the hadronic final state from the hard interaction in deep-inelastic ep neutral current scattering at HERA. The measurement is performed in the range of negative squared four momentum transfer 100<Q^2<8,000 GeV^2. The difference between the event normalised distributions of the scaled momentum, x_p, for positively and negatively charged particles, measured in the current region of the Breit frame, is studied together with its evolution as a function of Q. The results are compared to Monte Carlo models at the hadron and parton level.