Two-jet mass distributions have been measured as a function of centre-of-mass scattering angle for high-mass jet pairs produced in proton-antiproton collisions at the CERN collider operating at a centre-of-mass energy of 630 GeV. The agreement between QCD expectations and the experimental measurements has been used to place limits on the production cross section of an object X decaying into two jets. In particular we consider the existence of a massive colour octet of vector gauge bosons (axigluons). We exclude axigluons with a width Λ A < 0.4 m A and a mass m A in the range 150 < m A < 310 GeV/ c 2 (95% CL).

We present a study of low mass dimuon events [ m ( μμ ) < 6 GeV/ c 2 ] from the UA1 experiment at the CERN p p collider. Contributions from semileptonic decays of heavy flavour particles, Drell-Yan type processes, J/ψ decays and leptonic decays of light mesons are extracted, and cross sections for high p T beauty and Drell-Yan production are derived. A limit for the branching fraction for the exotic decay B 0 →μ + μ − is also obtained. The cross section for section for low mass, high p T Drell-Yan prod uction is compared to the measured direct photon cross section using QED and QCD derived relationship. This relationship is used to infer a measurement of the single photon cross section at lower values of transverse momentum, where photons cannot be unambigously identified.

We report evidence for beauty particle production through the observation of dimuon events from proton-antiproton collisions at energies of √ s =546 GeV and √ s =630 GeV at the CERN collider. Our data indicate that semi-leptonic decays of beauty particles are the dominant source of pairs of high- p T muons. The beauty flavour creation (gg or q¯q→b¯b ) cross-section needed to explain the dimuon rate is σ{ p¯p→b¯b +X, p b T 5 GeV/c, |η|<2.0}=(1.1±0.1±0.4) μb, which is in good agreement with QCD calculations. We also observe clear signals for ϒ→μ + μ − (hidden beauty) and high- p T J/ψ→μ + μ − , well above the backgraound of continuum muon pairs from the Drell-Yan mechanism.

A sample of two-jet events from the UA1 experiment at the CERN $p \bar{p}$ Collider has been used to study the fragmentation of high-energy quark and gluon jets into charged hadrons. Compared with lower-energy jets observed in $e^+ e^−$ and $pp$ collisions, the fragmentation function measured in the present experiment is softer (i.e. peaked to smaller values of z) and the mean internal transverse momentum is larger, mainly because of the effects of the QCD scaling violations. Using our knowledge of the quark and gluon structure functions in the proton, together with the QCD matrix elements, a statistical separation of quark and gluon jets is achieved within the present experiment. The fragmentation function for the gluon jets is found to be softer, and the angular spread of the fragmentation products larger, than is the case for quark jets.

We summarize the results obtained in the UA1 experiment on the production of bottom quarks in proton-antiproton collisions at √ s =0.63 TeV. Independent muon data samples are used to determine the bottom quark production cross section in different transverse momentum ranges from 6 to 30 GeV. A recent theoretical calculation to O(α s 3 ) of the inclusive bottom quark transverse momentum spectrum in hadronic collisions shows reasonable agreement with the data. We extrapolate the integral P T distribution to P T =0 and in rapidity to estimate the total cross section forthe production of bottom quark pairs. Assuming the shape in P T and rapidity given by the O(α s 3 ) calcultaion, we obtain σ( p p→b b +X) = 10.2 ±3.3 μb .

We present updated results from the UA1 experiment on cross sections times leptonic branching ratios for intermediate vector bosons produced in proton-antiproton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 0.630 TeV. We find that σ·B( W → l βn)=0.63±0.04±0.10 nb and σ·B( Z 0 → l + l − =0.071±0.011 nb where l denotes an average of electron and muon channels. An average over all data (electron and muon channels at 0.546 and 0.630 TeV) gives a ratio of R≡σ·( W → l ν)/σ·B( Z 0 → l + l − ) = 9.1 +1.7 −1.2 . Using current theoretical predictions for this quantity, limits are extracted on the number of light neutrino types. Combining UA1 and UA2 data and imposing the bound N ν ⩾3 we find that N ν ⩽5.9 at 90% CL. Constraints on the mass of the top quark are also discussed.

We have measured the W transverse momentum distribution ( p T W ) using a sample of 323 W → eν and W → μν events produced in proton-antiproton collisions at the CERN collider. In the present letter we extend the study of the distribution up to p T W ∼- m W and compare to leading and higher order QCD. This comparison is a precise test of QCD with hadron colliders and the inclusive spectrum gives good agreement over a large range of p T W . However we observed two events at very large p T W (∼- 100 GeV/ c ) in which the W candidate recoils against an energetic di-jet system. Both events have a very large missing transverse energy and a jet-jet mass compatible with the W mass. In a separate analysis, a topologically similar event has been observed in which a high-mass di-jet system is balanced by a large missing transverse energy which could be interpreted as Z 0 → ν ν decay. We cannot easily explain these three events in terms of explicit second-order QCD calculations. However we cannot exclude at this stage the possibility that they are the result of non-gaussian fluctuations in the response of UA1 calorimetry or a statistical fluctuation in the data.

We report evidence for the production of the charged D ∗ mesons in pp̄ collisions at s = 540 GeV . The search was confined to the charged particle fragments of hadronic jets, which are expected to be predominantly gluon jets in this experiment. The fragmentation function and production rate for D ∗ in jets of average transverse momentum of 28 GeV/ c are given.

The production of transverse energy clusters in minimum bias proton-antiproton collisions at the CERN SPS Collider is studied with the UA1 detector over a new range of centre of mass energies (√ s = 0.2−0.9 TeV). This study is intended to investigate how low in transverse momentum perturbative QCD is able to describe the dynamics of hadron collisions. We observe that clusters with transverse energy in excess of a few GeV exhibit properties in agreement with QCD expectations for parton scattering, supporting their interpretation in terms of jet production. We find that the jet-event rate represents a sizeable fraction of the inelastic rate and is increasing with √ s over the measured energy range.

We have measured the production cross-section times branching ratio for J/ψ→μ + μ − in pp̄ interactions at √ s = 630 GeV in the kinematic range |y|<2.0 and p T >5 GeV /c, BR ( J /ψ→μ + μ − )σ( p p ̄ → J /ψ)=6.18±0.24±0.81 nb . The data sample collected in 1988 and 1989 for an integrated luminosity of 4.7 pb −1 represents a fivefold improvement over the statistics in our earlier study of the J / ψ production process, and the p T distribution which is measured extends to 28 GeV / c . Using event topology we show that the rate for the direct production of J / ψ , via radiative decays of χ states, is larger than that for production via B-hadrons. Production of ψ′ is also studied using the decay modes < ψ ′→ μ + μ − and ψ ′→ J / ψπ + ψ − .