In this Report, QCD results obtained from a study of hadronic event structure in high energy e^+e^- interactions with the L3 detector are presented. The operation of the LEP collider at many different collision energies from 91 GeV to 209 GeV offers a unique opportunity to test QCD by measuring the energy dependence of different observables. The main results concern the measurement of the strong coupling constant, \alpha_s, from hadronic event shapes and the study of effects of soft gluon coherence through charged particle multiplicity and momentum distributions.
We present a measurement of the b-quark inclusive fragmentation function in Z0 decays using a novel kinematic B-hadron energy reconstruction technique. The measurement was performed using 350,000 hadronic Z0 events recorded in the SLD experiment at SLAC between 1997 and 1998. We compared the sacled B-hadron energy distribution with models of b-quark fragmentation and with several ad hoc functional forms. A number of models and functions are excluded by the data. The average scaled energy of weakly-decaying B hadrons was measured to be <x_B>= 0.709 +-0.003 (stat) +-0.003 (syst) +-0.002 (model).
The inclusive production of π± andK± mesons and of protons and antiprotons ine+e− annihilation has been measured at c.m. energies ofW=14, 22 and 34GeV. Using time of flight measurements and Cerenkov counters the full momentum range has been covered. Differential cross sections and total particle yields are given. At particle momenta of 0.4 GeV/c more than 90% of the charged hadrons are pions. With increasing momentum the fraction of pions among the charged hadrons decreases. AtW=34 GeV and a momentum of 5 GeV/c the particle fractions are approximately π±:K±:p,\(\bar p = 0.55:0.3:0.15\). On average an event atW=34 GeV contains 10.3±0.4π±, 2.0±0.2K± and 0.8±0.1p,\(\bar p\). In addition, we present results on baryon correlations using a sample of events where two or more protons and/or antiprotons are observed in the final state.
Charged hadron production ine+e− annihilation is studied in the 7 to 10 GeV CM energy region and at the Υ (9.46) and Υ′ (10.01) resonances with the LENA detector at DORIS. The statistical moments of the charged multiplicities are studied. The data show KNO scaling behaviour and suggest the presence of long range correlations. An average charged multiplicityrise of Δn(Υ)=0.55±0.19 and Δn(Υ′)=1.26±0.29 over the continuum is observed for the Υ and Υ′ direct decays. The jet structure of the Υ and Υ′ direct decays is investigated using the charged particles. The polar angular distributions of the jet axis behave like 1+α(T) cos2θ with 〈α(T)〉Υ=0.7±0.3 and 〈α(T)〉Υ′=0.6±0.4. The 〈α(T)〉Υ value is in agreement with the QCD vector gluon assignment and excludes scalar gluons by more than four standard deviations.
We report on an analysis of the multiplicity distributions of charged particles produced ine+e− annihilation into hadrons at c.m. energies between 14 and 46.8 GeV. The charged multiplicity distributions of the whole event and single hemisphere deviate significantly from the Poisson distribution but follow approximate KNO scaling. We have also studied the multiplicity distributions in various rapidity intervals and found that they can be well described by the negative binomial distribution only for small central intervals. We have also analysed forward-backward multiplicity correlations for different energies and selections of particle charge and shown that they can be understood in terms of the fragmentation properties of the different quark flavours and by the production and decay of resonances. These correlations are well reproduced by the Lund string model.
The production cross sections for the Λ, Σ0, Ξ−, Σ0 (1385), Ξ0 (1530) and Ω− hyperons have been measured, both in the continuum and in direct ϒ decays. Baryon rates in direct ϒ decays are enhanced by a factor of 2.5 or more compared to the continuum. Such a large baryon enhancement cannot be explained by standard fragmentation models. The strangeness suppression for baryons and mesons turns out to be the same. A strong suppression of spin 3/2 states is observed.
We have analyzed 1113 events of the reaction e + e − → hadrons at CM energies of 12 and 30 GeV in order to make a detailed comparison with QCD. Perturbative effects can be well separated from effects depending on the quark and gluon fragmentation parameters to yield a reliable measurement of the coupling constant α S . At 30 GeV, the result is α S = 0.17 ± 0.02 (statistical) ± 0.03 (systematic). QCD model predictions, using the fragmentation parameters determined along with α S , agree with both gross properties of the final states and with detailed features of the three-jet states.
The production of D * and D mesons has been studied in e + e − annihilations at √s = 29GeV. The data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 300 pb −1 , were obtained using the HRS detector at PEP. The cross section is measured to be R (D 0 + D + ) = 2.40±0.35 and we determine the electroweak asymmetry to be −9.9 ± 2.7%, which corresponds to an axial vector coupling constant product g e g c = 0.26 ± 0.07.
We present a study of differential two jet ratios in multi-hadronic final states produced by e + e − annihilation in the AMY detector at TRISTAN. The data are compared to the predictions of the next-to-leading logarithm parton-shower (NLL PS) Monte Carlo and the O ( α s 2 ) matrix element QCD models. We determine the strong coupling strength α s (57.3 GeV) = 0.130 ± 0.006.
The inclusive production of π± andK± mesons and of protons and antiprotons ine+e− annihilations has been measured at 34 GeV and 44 G
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