PINNING DOWN THE GLUE IN THE PROTON

The latest measurements of F-2 at HERA allow for a combination of gluo n and sea quark distributions at small x that is significantly differe nt from those of existing parton sets. We perform two new global fits to deep-inelastic and related data. The preferred fit has a gluon dist ribution which is larger for x less than or similar to 0.01, and small er for x similar to 0.1, and a flatter input sea quark distribution th an those obtained in our most recent global analysis. This fit also gi ves alpha(s)(M(Z)(2)) = 0.114. We study other experimental information available for the gluon including, in particular, the constraints com ing from fixed-target and collider prompt gamma production data.