The large sample of W→eν events collected by the UA2 experiment at the CERN pp̄ collider between 1988 and 1990 has been used to determine the strong coupling constant α s . From a measurement of the ratio of the production rate of W events with one jet to that with no jets, α s has been extracted to second order in the MS ̄ scheme: α s (M 2 w )=0.123±0.0.18( stat .)±0.017 ( syst .) .

The decays W → ev and Z → e + e − are studied in [ovbar|p]p collisions at √ s =630 GeV . The products of production cross section and branching ratio are measured as σ e w =682±12±40 pb and σ e w =65.6±4.0±3.8 pb. The results are in good agreement with O(α 2 s ) calculations of the production cross sections. Many systematic effects cancel in the ratio, R =10.4± 0.7 0.6 ±0.3, which can be used to give an indirect measurement of the total width of the W boson: Γ w =2.10±0.13±0.09 GeV . The width gives a limit on the top quark mass, m top >53 GeV (95% CL), which is independent of the top decay mode.

A study of the two-jet mass spectrum measured with the UA 2 calorimeter has revealed a signal from hadronic decays ofW andZ bosons above a large background. Production and decay properties of the signal have been measured. The combined production cross-section σ·B(W, Z → two jets) is 9.6±2.3 (stat.)±1.1 (syst.) nb, compared with an expectation of 5.8 nb calculated to order αs2. A limit on the production cross-section of additional heavy vector bosons decaying into two jets is given as a function of the boson mass.

We report measurements of the inclusive reaction, p pbar -> p X pbar, in events where either or both the beam-like final-state baryons were detected in Roman-pot spectrometers and the central system was detected in the UA2 calorimeter. A Double-Pomeron-Exchange (DPE) analysis of these data and single diffractive data from the same experiment demonstrates that, for central masses of a few GeV, the extracted Pomeron-Pomeron total cross section exhibits an enhancement which exceeds factorization expectations by an order-of-magnitude. This may be a signature for glueball production. The enhancement is shown to be independent of uncertainties connected with possible non-universality of the Pomeron flux factor. Based on our analysis, we present DPE cross section predictions, for unit (1 mb) Pomeron-Pomeron total cross section, at the Tevatron, LHC and the 920 GeV fixed-target experiment, HERA-B.

A study of events containing at least four high transverse momentum jets and a search for double parton scattering (DPS) have been performed using data collected with the UA2 detector at the CERN p p Collider (√ s =630 GeV). The results are in good agreement with leading order QCD calculations. A value of σ DPS <0.82 nb at 95% confidence level (CL) is obtained for the DPS cross section.

From a sample of 2.36 million minimum bias events produced in p p collisions at s =630 GeV in the UA1 experiment and from other published data at the CERN S p p S collider we have estimated the relative production of π ± , π 0 , K ± , K S 0 , Λ, Λ , p and p . We obtain a meson over baryon ratio M B = 6.4 ± 1.1 . From the K S 0 π ± ratio we measure the strangeness suppression factor λ = 0.29 ± 0.02 ± 0.01 which, combining with other available data provides a new world average of 0.29 ± 0.015. Both the K S 0 π ± ratio and the strangeness suppression factor λ as a function of s are investigated, and an extrapolation to the LHC energy is performed.

We report evidence for beauty particle production through the observation of dimuon events from proton-antiproton collisions at energies of √ s =546 GeV and √ s =630 GeV at the CERN collider. Our data indicate that semi-leptonic decays of beauty particles are the dominant source of pairs of high- p T muons. The beauty flavour creation (gg or q¯q→b¯b ) cross-section needed to explain the dimuon rate is σ{ p¯p→b¯b +X, p b T 5 GeV/c, |η|<2.0}=(1.1±0.1±0.4) μb, which is in good agreement with QCD calculations. We also observe clear signals for ϒ→μ + μ − (hidden beauty) and high- p T J/ψ→μ + μ − , well above the backgraound of continuum muon pairs from the Drell-Yan mechanism.

We report measurements of b-quark and B-hadron production in pp̄ collisions at √ s =630 GeV. We use muon samples to extract beauty production cross-sections over a wide range of transverse momentum in the central rapidity range | y | < 1.5. We compare our results to an O(α s 3 ) QCD prediction and find good agreement over the measured b-quark transverse momentum range 6 GeV / c to 54 GeV / c . Using the shape of the p T and y distribution predicted by QCD to extrapolate our data, we infer a total cross-section for b-quark production at √s=630 GeV of σ( p p ̄ → b b ̄ + X )=19.3±7( exp. )±9( th. μ b .

We present the first wide-range measurement of the charged-particle pseudorapidity density distribution, for different centralities (the 0-5%, 5-10%, 10-20%, and 20-30% most central events) in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 2.76$ TeV at the LHC. The measurement is performed using the full coverage of the ALICE detectors, $-5.0 < \eta < 5.5$, and employing a special analysis technique based on collisions arising from LHC "satellite" bunches. We present the pseudorapidity density as a function of the number of participating nucleons as well as an extrapolation to the total number of produced charged particles ($N_{\rm ch} = 17165 \pm 772$ for the 0-5% most central collisions). From the measured ${\rm d}N_{\rm ch}/{\rm d}\eta$ distribution we derive the rapidity density distribution, ${\rm d}N_{\rm ch}/{\rm d}y$, under simple assumptions. The rapidity density distribution is found to be significantly wider than the predictions of the Landau model. We assess the validity of longitudinal scaling by comparing to lower energy results from RHIC. Finally the mechanisms of the underlying particle production are discussed based on a comparison with various theoretical models.

Cross-sections for diffractive particle production and pseudorapidity distributions of the decay products of diffractive states are presented. The data were obtained with the UA 5 streamer chamber detector at the CERNpp Collider operated in a new pulsed mode yieldingpp interactions at c.m. energies of 900 and 200 GeV. Data recorded with a special trigger designed to select a sample of events enriched in single-diffractive interactions clearly favour apt-limited fragmentation of diffractive states. The cross-section for single-diffractive particle production ϊ was found to be 7.8±0.5±1.1 mb at 900 GeV and 4.8±0.5±0.8 mb at 200 GeV (first error statistical, second systematic). From the pseudorapidity distribution of diffractive states we deduce the average number of charged particles to be 6.5±1.0 at 900 GeV and 4.1±1.1 at 200 GeV. Furthermore we report on our estimates for the cross-section of double-diffractive particle production at both Collider energies.