Data on jet masses, resulting from the decomposition ofe+e− hadronic final states into two hemispheres, are presented at centre of mass energies between 12 and 43.5 GeV. Comparisons are made with bareO(αs2) QCD predictions as well as with QCD based fragmentation models. Values for αs and\(\Lambda _{\overline {MS} } \) are determined, both with and without hadronization effects included. Upper and lower limits for\(\Lambda _{\overline {MS} } \) independent of fragmentation models have been determined to be 0.480±0.025 GeV and 0.047±0.007 GeV respectively.

Production of the F meson by e + e − annihilation at high energies has been obsrved in the ϕπ final state with a mass of 1.975 ± 0.009 ± 0.010 GeV and a width consistent with the mass resolution. The yield of F production times branching ratio relative to μ pair production is R F ( x ⩾ 0.3) B (F ± → ϕπ ± ) = 0.061 ± 0.012 ± 0.018.

e + e − annihilation into hadrons was studied at CM energies between 39.8 and 45.2 GeV and a search was made for new heavy quarks. No evidence was found for the existence of a narrow state excluding the possible existence of the lowest vector toponium state in this mass range. A search for continuum production of heavy quarks led to lower mass limits for new quarks of 22.0 GeV ( e Q = 2 3 ) and 21.0 GeV ( e Q = 1 3 ). Quarks are found to be pointlike, the corresponding mass parameter being larger than 288 GeV. A fit of the QCD and the electroweak contributions to R = σ tot / σ μμ yielded sin 2 θ W = 0.30 −0.07 +0.23 .

We present the general properties of jets produced bye+e− annihilation. Their production and fragmentation characteristics have been studied with charged particles for c.m. energies between 12 and 43 GeV. In this energy rangee+e− annihilation into hadrons is dominated by pair production of the five quarksu, d, s, c andb. In addition, hard gluon bremsstrahlung effects which are invisible at low energies become prominent at the high energies. The observed multiplicity distributions deviate from a Poisson distribution. The multiplicity distributions for the overall event as well as for each event hemisphere satisfy KNO scaling to within ∼20%. The distributions ofxp=2p/W are presented; scale breaking is observed at the level of 25%. The quantityxpdδ/dxp is compared with multigluon emission calculations which predict a Gaussian distribution in terms of ln(1/x). The observed energy dependence of the maximum of the distributions is in qualitative agreement with the calculations. Particle production is analysed with respect to the jet axis and longitudinal and transverse momentum spectra are presented. The angular distribution of the jet axis strongly supports the idea of predominant spin 1/2 quark pair production. The particle distributions with respect to the event plane show clearly the growing importance of planar events with increasing c.m. energies. They also exclude the presence of heavy quark production,e+e−→Q\(\bar Q\) for quark masses up to 5<mQ<20.3 GeV (|eQ|=2/3) and 7<mQ<19 GeV (|eQ|=1/3). The comparison of 1/σtotdδ/dpT measured at 14, 22 and 34 GeV suggests that hard gluon bremsstrahlung contributes mainly to transverse momenta larger than 0.5 GeV/c. The rapidity distribution forW≧22 GeV shows an enhancement away fromy=0 which corresponds to an increase in yield of 10–15% compared to the centre region (y=0). The enhancement probably results from heavy quark production and gluon bremsstrahlung. The particle flux around the jet axis shows with increasing c.m. energy a rapidly growing number of particles collimated around the jet axis, while at large angles to the jet axis almost noW dependence is observed. For fixed longitudinal momentump‖ approximate “fan invariance” is seen: The shape of the angular distribution around the jet axis is almost independent ofW. The collimation depends strongly onp‖. For smallp‖,p‖<0.2 GeV/c, isotropy is observed. With increasingp‖ the particles tend to be emitted closer and closer to the jet axis.

The full TASSO data have been used to study the inclusive production of strange mesons ine+e− annihilations. Differential and total cross sections have been measured in the centre of mass energy range 14 to 44 GeV forK0,\(\bar K^0\) and 34.5 to 44 GeV forK*± (892). We have investigated the strange meson production properties in jets by studying the rapidity andpt2 distributions as well as the evolution of the multiplicities as a function of the event sphericity. We find no evidence that the strange meson yields increase with increasing sphericity faster than the total charged multiplicity.

The production of strange baryons ine+e− annihilation has been studied at centre of mass energies of 34.8 GeV and 42.1 GeV, using the TASSO detector at DESY. Inclusive cross-sections have been obtained forΛ0 andΞ− production and an upper limit has been placed upon the production rate of Σ*±(1385). We measure theΛ0 multiplicity per event to be\(\begin{gathered}\hfill \\0.218_{ - 0.011}^{ + 0.011}\pm 0.021 \hfill \\ \end{gathered} \) and\(0.256_{ - 0.029}^{ + 0.030}\pm 0.025\) at\(\sqrt s=34.8\) and 42.1 GeV respectively. The Ξ− multiplicity per event is found to be\(0.014_{ - 0.003}^{ + 0.003}\pm 0.004\) at\(\sqrt s=34.8 GeV\). An investigation has been made of the extent to whichΛ0 are produced in pairs. TheΛ0 cross-section has been studied as a function of event sphericity.

We report on an analysis of the multiplicity distributions of charged particles produced ine+e− annihilation into hadrons at c.m. energies between 14 and 46.8 GeV. The charged multiplicity distributions of the whole event and single hemisphere deviate significantly from the Poisson distribution but follow approximate KNO scaling. We have also studied the multiplicity distributions in various rapidity intervals and found that they can be well described by the negative binomial distribution only for small central intervals. We have also analysed forward-backward multiplicity correlations for different energies and selections of particle charge and shown that they can be understood in terms of the fragmentation properties of the different quark flavours and by the production and decay of resonances. These correlations are well reproduced by the Lund string model.

The inclusive production of π± andK± mesons and of protons and antiprotons ine+e− annihilations has been measured at 34 GeV and 44 G

The large amount of data accumulated by the TASSO detector at 35 GeV c.m. energy has been compared with the predictions of the latest generation of perturbative QCD+fragmentation models. By adjustment of the arbitrary parameters of these models, a very good description of the global properties of hadronic events was obtained. No one model gave the best description of all features of the data, each model being better than the others for some observables and worse in other quantities. We interpret these results in terms of the underlying QCD and hadronisation schemes. The trends of the data across the energy range 12.0≦W≦41.5 GeV are generally well reproduced by the models with the parameters optimised at 35 GeV.

We report on a study of inclusive production ofD*± mesons ine+e− annihilation at c.m. energies between 28 and 46.8 GeV using the TASSO detector at the PETRA storage ring. A hardD*± energy spectrum is measured with a maximum nearED*±≃0.6Ebeam. The measured cross section ratio\((\sigma _{D^{* + } }+ \sigma _{D^{* - } } )/\sigma _{\mu \mu }= 1.28 \pm 0.09 \pm 0.18\) indicates thatD* production accounts for a large fraction of the observed charm production. Two complementary methods have been used to determine the forward-backward asymmetry of charm pair production due to electroweak interference. Combining both measurements the product of the axial vector couplings of the electron and the charm quark to the weak neutral current was determined to begAegAc=−(0.276±0.073), in agreement with the standard model prediction of −0.25. Using a sample of reconstructedD*± mesons, the relative strength of the strong interaction coupling of thec quark compared to that of an average of all flavours is measured as αs(c)/αs(all)=0.91±0.38±0.15, consistent with the coupling constant being flavour independent. An update of ourD0 lifetime measurement is presented, based on a considerable increase in statistics, the final result being\(\tau _{D^0= } (4.8 \pm _{0.9 - 0.7}^{1.0 + 0.5} )10^{ - 13} s\).