A direct determination of the gluon density in the proton at low x

A leading order determination of the gluon density in the proton has been performed in the fractional momentum range 1.9 · 10−3 < xg/p < 0.18 by measuring multi-jet events from boson-gluon fusion in deep-inelastic scattering with the H1 detector at the electron-proton collider HERA. This direct determination of the gluon density was performed in a kinematic region previously not accessible. The data show a considerable increase of the gluon density with decreasing fractional momenta of the gluons.