The cross section for the process e + e − → multihadrons has been measured at the highest PETRA energies. We measure R (the total cross section in units of the point-like e + e - → μ + μ - cross section) to be 2.9 ± 0.7, 4.0 ± 0.5, 4.6 ± 0.4 and 4.2 ± 0.6 at s of 22, 27.7, 30 and 31.6 GeV, respectively. The observed average multiplicity, together with existing low energy data, indicate a rapid increase in multiplicity with increasing energy.
We report experimental results on the cross section for the reaction e + e − → hadrons as a function of the total c.m. energy in the range W = 1.42–3.09 GeV. The results, combined with those already existing below the charm threshold, clearly indicate a structure for R ( W ) = α ( e + e − → hadrons)/ α ( e + e − → μ + μ − ) in that energy region.
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 total cross section for hadron production by e+e− annihilation has been measured at center-of-mass energies between 2.4 and 5.0 GeV. Aside from the very narrow resonances ψ(3105) and ψ(3695), the cross section varies between 32 and 17 nb over this region with structure in the vicinity of 4.1 GeV.
We have measured theR value in non-resonante+e− annihilation using the ARGUS detector at the storage ring DORIS II. At a centre-of-mass energy\(\sqrt s= 9.36\) GeV the ratio of the hadronic cross-section to the μ-pair cross section in lowest order QED has been determined to beR=3.46±0.03±0.13. In addition, we have measured the charged-particle multiplicities in non-resonant hadron production at\(\sqrt s= 10.47\) GeV just below theB\(\bar B\) threshold and in ϒ (4S) resonance decays. For the average charged-particle multiplicities in continuum events and ϒ(4S)→B\(\bar B\) decays we obtain <n>cont=8.35±0.02±0.20 and <n>ϒ(4s)=10.81±0.05±0.23.
This analysis, based on a sample of 170000 hadronic Z0 decays, provides a measurement of the K ± and p/ p differential cross sections which is compared to string- and cluster fragmentation models. The total multiplicities for K ± and p/ p per hadronic event were found to be: NK = 2.26 ± 0.18 and N p = 1.07 ± 0.14. The positions ξ * of the maxima of the differential cross sections as a function of ξ = ln(1/ x p ) for K ± and p/ p were determined to be 2.63 ± 0.07 and 2.96 ± 0.16 respectively. A comparison of the ξ * values for various identified particles measured at LEP with the prediction of the Modified Leading Logarithm Approximation with Local Parton Hadron Duality model has been performed. The measured ξ * position as a function of the hadron mass, after corrections due to particle decays, is in agreement with the model calculation.
We have studied hadronic events produced at LEP at a centre-of-mass energy of 161 GeV. We present distributions of event shape variables, jet rates, charged particle momentum spectra and multiplicities. We determine the strong coupling strength to be αs(161 GeV) = 0.101±0.005(stat.)±0.007(syst.), the mean charged particle multiplicity to be 〈nch〉(161 GeV) = 24.46 ± 0.45(stat.) ± 0.44(syst.) and the position of the peak in the ξp = ln(1/xp) distribution to be ξ0(161 GeV) = 4.00 ±0.03(stat.)±0.04(syst.). These results are compared to data taken at lower centre-of-mass energies and to analytic QCD or Monte Carlo predictions. Our measured value of αs(161 GeV) is consistent with other measurements of αs. Within the current statistical and systematic uncertainties, the PYTHIA, HERWIG and ARIADNE QCD Monte Carlo models and analytic calculations are in overall agreement with our measurements. The COJETS QCD Monte Carlo is in general agreement with the data for momentum weighted distributions like Thrust, but predicts a significantly larger charged particle multiplicity than is observed experimentally.
In this Report, QCD results obtained from a study of hadronic event structure in high energy e^+e^- interactions with the L3 detector are presented. The operation of the LEP collider at many different collision energies from 91 GeV to 209 GeV offers a unique opportunity to test QCD by measuring the energy dependence of different observables. The main results concern the measurement of the strong coupling constant, \alpha_s, from hadronic event shapes and the study of effects of soft gluon coherence through charged particle multiplicity and momentum distributions.
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