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.
Jet fractions using the JADE algorithm as a function of the jet resolution parameter YCUT at c.m. energy 130.1 GeV.
Jet fractions using the JADE algorithm as a function of the jet resolution parameter YCUT at c.m. energy 136.1 GeV.
Jet fractions using the JADE algorithm as a function of the jet resolution parameter YCUT at c.m. energy 161.3 GeV.
Inclusive charged particle and event shape distributions are measured using 321 hadronic events collected with the DELPHI experiment at LEP at effective centre of mass energies of 130 to 136 GeV. These distributions are presented and compared to data at lower energies, in particular to the precise Z data. Fragmentation models describe the observed changes of the distributions well. The energy dependence of the means of the event shape variables can also be described using second order QCD plus power terms. A method independent of fragmentation model corrections is used to determine αs from the energy dependence of the mean thrust and heavy jet mass. It is measured to be: $$←pha _s(133 {⤪ GeV})={0.116}pm {0.007}_{exp-0.004theo}^{+0.005}$$ from the high energy data.
mean values for event shape variables.
Integral of event shape distribution over the specified interval.
Integral of event shape distribution over the specified interval.