Measurements of the tau lepton polarization and forward-backward polarization asymmetry near the Z resonance using the OPAL detector are described. The measurements are based on analyses of tau -> e nu_e nu_tau, tau -> mu nu_mu nu_tau, tau -> pi nu_tau, tau -> rho nu_tau and tau -> a1 nu_tau decays from a sample of 144810 e+e- -> tau+ tau- candidates corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 151 pb-1. Assuming that the tau lepton decays according to V-A theory, we measure the average tau polarization near Ecm = MZ to be <Ptau> = (-14.10 +/- 0.73 +/- 0.55)% and the tau polarization forward-backward asymmetry to be Afb = (-10.55 +/- 0.76 +/- 0.25)%, where the first error is statistical and the second systematic. Taking into account the small effects of the photon propagator, photon-Z interference and photonic radiative corrections, these results can be expressed in terms of the lepton neutral current asymmetry parameters: Atau = 0.1456 +/- 0.0076 +/- 0.0057, Ae = 0.1454 +/- 0.0108 +/- 0.0036. These measurements are consistent with the hypothesis of lepton universality and combine to give Al = 0.1455 +/- 0.0073. Within the context of the Standard Model this combined result corresponds to sin^2(theta)(lept,effective) = 0.23172 +/- 0.00092. Combing these results with those from the other OPAL neutral current measurements yields a value of sin^2(theta)(lept,effective) = 0.23211 +/- 0.00068.

About 4.4 million hadronic decays of Z bosons, recorded by the OPAL detector at LEP at a centre-of-mass energy of around sqrt(s) = 91.2 GeV, are used to determine the mean charged particle multiplicities for the three light quark flavours. Events from primary u, d, and s quarks are tagged by selecting characteristic particles which carry a large fraction of the beam energy. The charged particle multiplicities are measured in the hemispheres opposite to these particles. An unfolding procedure is applied to obtain these multiplicities for each primary light quark flavour. This yields <n_u> = 17.77 +- 0.51 +0.86 -1.20, <n_d> = 21.44 +- 0.63 +1.46 -1.17, <n_s> = 20.02 +- 0.13 +0.39 -0.37, where statistical and systematic errors are given. The results for <n_u> and <n_d> are almost fully statistically anti-correlated. Within the errors the result is consistent with the flavour independence of the strong interaction for the particle multiplicities in events from the light up, down, and strange quarks.

Di-jet producion is studied in collisions of quasi-real photons at e+e- centre- of-mass energies sqrt(s)ee from 189 to 209 GeV at LEP. The data were collected with the OPAL detector. Jets are reconstructed using an inclusive k_t clustering algorithm for all cross-section measurements presented. A cone jet algorithm is used in addition to study the different structure of the jets resulting from either of the algorithms. The inclusive di-jet cross-section is measured as a function of the mean transverse energy Etm(jet) of the two leading jets, and as a functiuon of the estimated fraction of the photon momentum carried by the parton entering the hard sub-process, xg, for different regions of Etm (jet). Angular distribution in di-jet events are measured and used to demonstrate the dominance of quark and gluon initiated processes in different regions of phase space. Furthermore the inclusive di-jet cross-section as a function of |eta(jet)| and |delta eta (jet)| is presented where eta(jet) is the jet pseudo-rapidity. Different regions of the xg+ -xg- -space are explored to study and control the influence of an underlying event. The results are compared to next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculations and to the predictions of the leading order Monte Carlo generator PYTHIA.

We present the first experimental results based on the jet boost algorithm, a technique to select unbiased samples of gluon jets in e+e- annihilations, i.e. gluon jets free of biases introduced by event selection or jet finding criteria. Our results are derived from hadronic Z0 decays observed with the OPAL detector at the LEP e+e- collider at CERN. First, we test the boost algorithm through studies with Herwig Monte Carlo events and find that it provides accurate measurements of the charged particle multiplicity distributions of unbiased gluon jets for jet energies larger than about 5 GeV, and of the jet particle energy spectra (fragmentation functions) for jet energies larger than about 14 GeV. Second, we apply the boost algorithm to our data to derive unbiased measurements of the gluon jet multiplicity distribution for energies between about 5 and 18 GeV, and of the gluon jet fragmentation function at 14 and 18 GeV. In conjunction with our earlier results at 40 GeV, we then test QCD calculations for the energy evolution of the distributions, specifically the mean and first two non-trivial normalized factorial moments of the multiplicity distribution, and the fragmentation function. The theoretical results are found to be in global agreement with the data, although the factorial moments are not well described for jet energies below about 14 GeV.

Flavour inclusive, udsc and b fragmentation functions in unbiased jets, and flavour inclusive, udsc, b and gluon fragmentation functions in biased jets are measured in e+e- annihilations from data collected at centre-of-mass energies of 91.2, and 183-209 GeV with the OPAL detector at LEP. The unbiased jets are defined by hemispheres of inclusive hadronic events, while the biased jet measurements are based on three-jet events selected with jet algorithms. Several methods are employed to extract the fragmentation functions over a wide range of scales. Possible biases are studied in the results are obtained. The fragmentation functions are compared to results from lower energy e+e- experiments and with earlier LEP measurements and are found to be consistent. Scaling violations are observed and are found to be stronger for the fragmentation functions of gluon jets than for those of quarks. The measured fragmentation functions are compared to three recent theoretical next-to-leading order calculations and to the predictions of three Monte Carlo event generators. While the Monte Carlo models are in good agreement with the data, the theoretical predictions fail to describe the full set of results, in particular the b and gluon jet measurements.

A study of b quark hadronisation is presented using inclusively reconstructed B hadrons in about four million hadronic Z decays recorded in 1992-2000 with the OPAL detector at LEP. The data are compared to different theoretical models, and fragmentation function parameters of these models are fitted. The average scaled energy of weakly decaying B hadrons is determined to be &lt;xe>=0.7193+-0.0016(stat)+0.0036-0.0031(syst)

The inclusive production of charged hadrons in the collisions of quasi-real photons e+e- -> e+e- +X has been measured using the OPAL detector at LEP. The data were taken at e+e- centre-of-mass energies from 183 to 209 GeV. The differential cross-sections as a function of the transverse momentum and the pseudorapidity of the hadrons are compared to theoretical calculations of up to next-to-leading order (NLO) in the strong coupling constant alpha{s}. The data are also compared to a measurement by the L3 Collaboration, in which a large deviation from the NLO predictions is observed.

Inclusive jet production (e+e- -> e+e- +jet+X) is studied in collisions of quasi-real photons radiated by the LEP beams at e+e- centre-of-mass energies sqrt see from 189 to 209 GeV. Jets are reconstructed using the kp jet algorithm. The inclusive differential cross-section is measured as a function of the jet transverse momentum, ptjet, in the range 5 <ptjet < 40 GeV for pseudo-rapidities, etaj, in the range -1.5 < etaj < 1.5. The results are compared to predictions of perturbative QCD in next-to-leading order in the strong coupling constant.

Charged particle momentum distributions are studied in the reaction e+e- -> hadrons, using data collected with the OPAL detector at centre-of-mass energies from 192 GeV to 209 GeV. The data correspond to an average centre-of- mass energy of 201.7 GeV and a total integrated luminosity of 433 pb-1. The measured distributions and derived quantities, in combination with corresponding results obtained at lower centre-of-mass energies, are compared to QCD predictions in various theoretical approaches to study the energy dependence of the strong interaction and to test QCD as the theory describing it. In general, a good agreement is found between the measurements and the corresponding QCD predictions.

We have studied hadronic events from e+e- annihilation data at centre-of-mass energies of sqrt{s}=172, 183 and 189 GeV. The total integrated luminosity of the three samples, measured with the OPAL detector, corresponds to 250 pb^-1. We present distributions of event shape variables, charged particle multiplicity and momentum, measured separately in the three data samples. From these we extract measurements of the strong coupling alpha_s, the mean charged particle multiplicity <nch> and the peak position xi_0 in the xi_p=ln(1/x_p) distribution. In general the data are described well by analytic QCD calculations and Monte Carlo models. Our measured values of alpha_s, <nch> and xi_0 are consistent with previous determinations at sqrt{s}=MZ.