Hadron production by e + e − annihilation has been studied for c.m. energies W between 13 and 31.6 GeV. As a function of 1n W the charged particle multiplicity grows faster at high energy than at lower energies. This is correlated with a rise in the plateau of the rapidity distribution. The cross section s d σ /d x is found to scale within ±30% for x > 0.2 and 5 ⩽ W ⩽ 31.6 GeV.
We have observed e + e − hadrons at C.M. energies of 13 GeV and 17 GeV at PETRA using the TASSO detector. We find R (13 GeV) = 5.6 ± 0.7 and R (17 GeV) = 4.0 ± 0.7. The additional systematic uncertainty is 20%. Comparing inclusive charged hadron spectra we observe scaling between 5 GeV and 17 GeV for x = p / p beam > 0.2; however the 13 GeV cross section is above the 17 GeV cross section for smaller x . This may be due to copious bb̄ production. The events become increasingly jet like at high energies as evidenced by a shrinking sphericity distribution with increasing energy.
We have analyzed 1113 events of the reaction e + e − → hadrons at CM energies of 12 and 30 GeV in order to make a detailed comparison with QCD. Perturbative effects can be well separated from effects depending on the quark and gluon fragmentation parameters to yield a reliable measurement of the coupling constant α S . At 30 GeV, the result is α S = 0.17 ± 0.02 (statistical) ± 0.03 (systematic). QCD model predictions, using the fragmentation parameters determined along with α S , agree with both gross properties of the final states and with detailed features of the three-jet states.
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