Abstract submitted to the
         XXXth International Conference on High Energy Physics
                July 27 - August 2, 2000, Osaka, Japan
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                Study of multiplicity moments in DIS at HERA


                    
                               ZEUS Collaboration





                                    Abstract


    The charged-particle multiplicity in neutral current deep
inelastic scattering events with $Q^2$ > 400 GeV$^2$ has been studied
with the ZEUS detector at HERA, using an integrated luminosity of 38
$pb^-1$.  The multiplicity distributions have been studied in limited
regions of phase space using the normalised factorial moments measured
in the current hemisphere of the Breit frame.  The factorial
multiplicity moments have been measured for the first time. The
results are discussed in terms of perturbative QCD and Monte Carlo
models; substantial quantitative discrepancies have been observed for
high-Q^2 events.