Using data collected from 1992 to 1995 with the ALEPH detector at LEP, a measurement of the colour factor ratios CA/CF and TF /CF and the strong coupling constant αs = CFαs(MZ)/(2π) has been performed by fitting theoretical predictions simultaneously to the measured differential two-jet rate and angular distributions in four-jet events. The result is found to be in excellent agreement with QCD, {fx4-1} Fixing CA/CF and TF/CF to the QCD values permits a determination of αs(MZ) and ηf, the number of active flavours. With this measurement the existence of a gluino with mass below 6.3 GeV/c2 is excluded at 95% confidence level.
Fit A: using all kinematical distributions. NC, CF, and TF are the color factors for SU(3) group, NF is the number of the active flavors.
Fit B: using all kinematical distributions, but QCD magnitudes for color factors are used: FA(DEF=NC/CF)) = 2.25 and TF/CF = 0.375. NC, CF, and TF are the color factors for SU(3) group, NF is the number of the active flavors.
Fit C: the QCD magnitudes for color factors and NF = 5 are used.
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NC, CF, and TF are the color factors for SU(N) group. For SU(3) they are equal to: NC = 3, CF = 4/3, and TF = 1/2.
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.