Infrared and collinear safe event shape distributions and their mean values are determined in e+e- collisions at centre-of-mass energies between 45 and 202 GeV. A phenomenological analysis based on power correction models including hadron mass effects for both differential distributions and mean values is presented. Using power corrections, alpha_s is extracted from the mean values and shapes. In an alternative approach, renormalisation group invariance (RGI) is used as an explicit constraint, leading to a consistent description of mean values without the need for sizeable power corrections. The QCD beta-function is precisely measured using this approach. From the DELPHI data on Thrust, including data from low energy experiments, one finds beta_0 = 7.86 +/- 0.32 for the one loop coefficient of the beta-function or, assuming QCD, n_f = 4.75 +/- 0.44 for the number of active flavours. These values agree well with the QCD expectation of beta_0=7.67 and n_f=5. A direct measurement of the full logarithmic energy slope excludes light gluinos with a mass below 5 GeV.
1-THRUST distribution.
THRUST-MAJOR distribution.
THRUST-MINOR distribution.
We have measured the multiplicity of charm quark pairs arising from gluon splitting in a sample of about 3.5 million hadronic Z 0 decays. By selecting a 3-jet event topology and tagging charmed hadrons in the lowest energy jet using leptons, we established a signature of heavy quark pair production from gluons. The average number of gluons splitting into a c c pair per hadronic event was measured to be n g→c c =(2.27±0.28±0.41) × 10 −2 .
Axis error includes +- 8.4/8.4 contribution (Total generator error for the electron channel due to the uncertainties in parameters of Peterson model of fragmentation, LAMBDA_QCD, ALPHA_S, Lund fragmentation parameters and lepton decay model).