We have determined the strong coupling αs from measurements of jet rates in hadronic decays of Z0 bosons collected by the SLD experiment at SLAC. Using six collinear and infrared safe jet algorithms we compared our data with the predictions of QCD calculated up to second order in perturbation theory, and also with resummed calculations. We find αs(MZ2)=0.118±0.002(stat)±0.003(syst)±0.010(theory), where the dominant uncertainty is from uncalculated higher order contributions.
The second systematic error comes from the theoretical uncertainties.
Distributions are presented of event shape variables, jet roduction rates and charged particle momenta obtained from 53 000 hadronicZ decays. They are compared to the predictions of the QCD+hadronization models JETSET, ARIADNE and HERWIG, and are used to optimize several model parameters. The JETSET and ARIADNE coherent parton shower (PS) models with running αs and string fragmentation yield the best description of the data. The HERWIG parton shower model with cluster fragmentation fits the data less well. The data are in better agreement with JETSET PS than with JETSETO(αS2) matrix elements (ME) even when the renormalization scale is optimized.
Sphericity distribution.
Sphericity distribution.
Aplanarity distribution.
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