Production of events with hadronic and leptonic final states has been measured in e^+e^- collisions at centre-of-mass energies of 130-172 GeV, using the OPAL detector at LEP. Cross-sections and leptonic forward-backward asymmetries are presented, both including and excluding the dominant production of radiative Z \gamma events, and compared to Standard Model expectations. The ratio R_b of the cross-section for bb(bar) production to the hadronic cross-section has been measured. In a model-independent fit to the Z lineshape, the data have been used to obtain an improved precision on the measurement of \gamma-Z interference. The energy dependence of \alpha_em has been investigated. The measurements have also been used to obtain limits on extensions of the Standard Model described by effective four-fermion contact interactions, to search for t-channel contributions from new massive particles and to place limits on chargino pair production with subsequent decay of the chargino into a light gluino and a quark pair.
SIG(C=MEAS) and SIG(C=CORR) stand for measured values without (C=MEAS) and with (C=CORR) correction for interference between initial- and final-state radiation.
The angular distribution of the thrust axis. Errors include statistical and systematic effects combined, with the former dominant.
The measured values include the effect of interference between initial- andfinal-state radiation.
We have studied azimuthal correlations in singly-tagged e+e− → e+e−μ+μ− events at an average Q2 of 5.2 GeV2. The data were taken with the OPAL detector at LEP at e+e− centre-of-mass energies close to the Z0 mass, with an integrated luminosity of approximately 100 pb−1. The azimuthal correlations are used to extract the ratio $F_{B}^{αmma}/F_{2}^{αmma}$ of the QED structure functions $F_{B}^{αmma}(x,Q^{2})$ and $F_{2}^{αmma}(x,Q^{2})$ of the photon. In leading order and neglecting the muon mass $F_{B}^{αmma}$ is expected to be identical to the longitudinal structure function $F_{L}^{αmma}$. The measurement of $F_{B}^{αmma}/F_{2}^{αmma}$ is found to be significantly different from zero and to be consistent with the QED prediction.
No description provided.
Dimuon and trimuon events produced by the interaction of 250 GeV muons in an iron target have been studied and are shown to originate predominantly from charm production. The data are used to measure the contribution of charm to the nucleon structure function F 2 . The cross sections for real photoproduction ( Q 2 =0) of charm in the current fragmentation region are derived as a function of photon energy and are found to be ∼0.6% of the total, hadronic photoproduction cross section in this energy range. The measured cross sections are found to be well represented by the photon-gluon fusion model. The charmed quark fragmentation function is obtained by using this model to fit the measured decay muon energy distribution and is found to be well represented by exp(1.6±1.6) Z . The data are used to study the momentum distribution of the gluons in the nucleon. An upper limit of 1.4% (90% confidence level) is set on the branching ratio D→ μν and a model-dependent upper limit on the branching ratio F→ μν is derived.
The charm contribution to the nucleon structure function from the dimuon data.
No description provided.
No description provided.
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