We have measured the cross-section of the production of single photon events in e + e − collisions near the Z 0 resonance. For an integrated luminosity of 9.6 pb −1 , we have observed 202 single photon candidates with energy between 0.9 and 3.5 GeV in the polar angular region between 45° and 135°. Assuming that the only stable weakly interacting particles are light neutrinos with standard model couplings, we determine the number of light neutrino species to be N v = 3.14 ± 0.24 (stat.)±0.12 (syst.). This corresponds to an invisible Z 0 width of Γ inv = 524 ± 40 ± 20 MeV.
Corrected cross section.
The L3 detector at LEP has been used to determine the number of light neutrino families by measuring the cross section of single photon even in e + e − collisions at energies near the Z 0 resonance. We have observed 61 single photon candidates with more than 1.5 GeV of deposited energy in the barrel electromagnetic calorimeter, for a total integrated luminosity of 3.0 pb −1 . From a likelihood fir to the single photon cross sections, we determin N ν =3.24 ± 0.46 ( statistical ) ±0.22 ( systematic ).
Corrected single photon cross sections. Errors represent 68 pct CL intervals and take into account the background fluctuations.
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