We have studied hadronic events from e+e- annihilation data at centre-of-mass energies from 91 to 209 GeV. We present distributions of event shape observables and their moments at each energy and compare with QCD Monte Carlo models. From the event shape distributions we extract the strong coupling alpha_s and test its evolution with energy scale. The results are consistent with the running of alpha_s expected from QCD. Combining all data, the value of alpha_s(M_Z) is determined to be alpha_s(M_Z) = 0.1191 +- 0.0005 (stat.) +- 0.0010 (expt.) +- 0.0011 (hadr.) +- 0.0044 (theo.). The energy evolution of the moments is also used to determine a value of alpha_s with slightly larger errors: alpha_s(M_Z) = 0.1223 +- 0.0005 (stat.) +- 0.0014 (expt.) +- 0.0016 (hadr.) +0.0054 -0.0036 (theo.).
Measured normalized differential distribution for 1-THRUST.
Measured normalized differential distribution for HEAVY-JET-MASS.
Measured normalized differential distribution for C-PARAMETER.
Using 106 000 hadronic events obtained with the ALEPH detector at LEP at energies close to the Z resonance peak, the strong coupling constant α s is measured by an analysis of energy-energy correlations (EEC) and the global event shape variables thrust, C -parameter and oblateness. It is shown that the theoretical uncertainties can be significantly reduced if the final state particles are first combined in clusters using a minimum scaled invariant mass cut, Y cut , before these variables are computed. The combined result from all shape variables of pre-clustered events is α s ( M Z 2 = 0.117±0.005 for a renormalization scale μ= 1 2 M Z . For μ values between M Z and the b-quark mass, the result changes by −0.009 +0.006 .
No description provided.
Error contains both experimental and theoretical errors.