Tests of the standard model and constraints on new physics from measurements of fermion pair production at 130-GeV to 172-GeV at LEP

The OPAL collaboration Ackerstaff, K. ; Alexander, G. ; Allison, John ; et al.
Eur.Phys.J.C 2 (1998) 441-472, 1998.
Inspire Record 447186 DOI 10.17182/hepdata.47404

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.

15 data tables

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.

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Test of QCD analytic predictions for the multiplicity ratio between gluon and quark jets.

The OPAL collaboration Alexander, G. ; Allison, John ; Altekamp, N. ; et al.
Phys.Lett.B 388 (1996) 659-672, 1996.
Inspire Record 423486 DOI 10.17182/hepdata.47714

Gluon jets with about 39 GeV energy are identified in hadronic Z 0 decays by tagging two jets in the same hemisphere of an event as quark jets. Identifying the gluon jet to be all the particles observed in the hemisphere opposite to that containing the two tagged jets yields an inclusive gluon jet definition corresponding to that used in analytic calculations, allowing the first direct test of those calculations. In particular, this jet definition yields results which are only weakly dependent on a jet finding algorithm. We find r ch. =1.552±0.0041 ( stat ) ±0.061 ( syst. ) for the ratio of the mean charged particle multiplicity in gluon jets to that in light quark uds jets, where the uds jets are identified using an inclusive jet definition similar to that used for the gluon jets. Our result is in general agreement with the prediction of a recent analytic calculation which incorporates energy conservation into the parton shower branching processes, but is considerably smaller than analytic predictions which do not incorporate energy conservation.

2 data tables

Mean charged particle multiplicity in gluon jets.

Mean charged particle multiplicity in single hemisphere light quark jets.