Measurement of the W+ W- gamma cross-section and direct limits on anomalous quartic gauge boson couplings at LEP

The L3 collaboration Acciarri, M. ; Achard, P. ; Adriani, O. ; et al.
Phys.Lett.B 490 (2000) 187-195, 2000.
Inspire Record 531570 DOI 10.17182/hepdata.49908

The process e+e- -> W+W-gamma is analysed using the data collected with the L3 detector at LEP at a centre-of-mass energy of 188.6GeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 176.8pb^-1. Based on a sample of 42 selected W+W- candidates containing an isolated hard photon, the W+W-gamma cross section, defined within phase-space cuts, is measured to be: sigma_WWgamma = 290 +/- 80 +/- 16 fb, consistent with the Standard Model expectation. Including the process e+e- -> nu nu gamma gamma, limits are derived on anomalous contributions to the Standard Model quartic vertices W+W- gamma gamma and W+W-Z gamma at 95% CL: -0.043 GeV^-2 < a_0/Lambda^2 < 0.043 GeV^-2 0.08 GeV^-2 < a_c/Lambda^2 < 0.13 GeV^-2 0.41 GeV^-2 < a_n/Lambda^2 < 0.37 GeV^-2.

2 data tables

Measured cross section within the limits of the cuts. THETA(C=GAMMA) is the angle between the photon and the beam axis. ALPHA(C=GAMMA) is the angle between the photon and that of the closest charged lepton or jet.

95 PCT confidence limits on the anomolous contributions.