This report reviews the experimental investigation of high energy e + e − interactions by the MARK J collaboration at PETRA, the electron-positron colliding beam accelerator at DESY in Hamburg, Germany. The physics objectives include studies of several purely electromagnetic processes and hadronic final states, which further our knowledge of the nature of the fundamental constituents and of their strong, electromagnetic and weak interactions. Before discussing the physics results, the main features and the principal components of the MARK J detector are discussed in terms of design, function, and performance. Several aspects of the on-line data collection and the off-line analysis are also outlined. Results are presented on tests of quantum electrodynamics using e + e − → e + e − , μ + μ − and τ + τ − , on the measurement of R , the ratio of the hadronic to the point-like muon pair cross section, on the search for new quark flavors, on the discovery of three jet events arising from the radiation of hard noncollinear gluons as predicted by quantum chromodynamics, and on the determination of the strong coupling constant α s .
Previously published and as yet unpublished QCD results obtained with the ALEPH detector at LEP1 are presented. The unprecedented statistics allows detailed studies of both perturbative and non-perturbative aspects of strong interactions to be carried out using hadronic Z and tau decays. The studies presented include precise determinations of the strong coupling constant, tests of its flavour independence, tests of the SU(3) gauge structure of QCD, study of coherence effects, and measurements of single-particle inclusive distributions and two-particle correlations for many identified baryons and mesons.
The hadronic final states observed with the ALEPH detector at LEP in ${\rm e}^ + {\rm e}^-$ annihilation
Earlier measurements at LEP of isolated hard photons in hadronic Z decays, attributed to radiation from primary quark pairs, have been extended in the ALEPH experiment to include hard photon productioninside hadron jets. Events are selected where all particles combine democratically to form hadron jets, one of which contains a photon with a fractional energyz≥0.7. After statistical subtraction of non-prompt photons, the quark-to-photon fragmentation function,D(z), is extracted directly from the measured 2-jet rate. By taking into account the perturbative contributions toD(z) obtained from anO(ααs) QCD calculation, the unknown non-perturbative component ofD(z) is then determined at highz. Provided due account is taken of hadronization effects nearz=1, a good description of the other event topologies is then found.
The inclusive production of the omega(782) vector meson in hadronic Z decays is measured and compared to model predictions. The analysis is based on 4 million hadronic Z decays recorded by the ALEPH detector between 1991 and 1995. The production rate for x_p = p_meson/p_beam > 0.05 is measured in the omega -> pi^+ pi^- pi^0 decay mode and found to be 0.585 +- 0.019_stat +- 0.033_sys per event. Inclusive eta meson production is also measured in the same decay channel for x_p > 0.10, obtaining 0.355 +- 0.011_stat +- 0.024_sys per event. The branching ratio for omega -> mu^+ mu^- is investigated. A total of 18.1 +- 5.9 events are observed, from which the muonic branching ratio is measured for the first time to be BR(omega -> mu^+ mu^-) = (9.0 +- 2.9_stat +- 1.1_sys)*10^-5.
Exclusive production of π and K meson pairs in two photon collisions is measured with ALEPH data collected between 1992 and 2000. Cross-sections are presented as a function of cos θ ∗ and invariant mass, for | cos θ ∗ |<0.6 and invariant masses between 2.0 and 6.0 GeV/ c 2 (2.25 and 4.0 GeV/ c 2 ) for pions (kaons). The shape of the distributions are found to be well described by QCD predictions but the data have a significantly higher normalization.
The production rates of D*+-, Ds*+-, D+-, D0 / D0bar, Ds+, and Lambda_c in Z to ccbar decays are measured using the LEP I data sample recorded by the ALEPH detector. The fractional energy spectrum of the D*+- is well described as the sum of three contributions: charm hadronisation, b hadron decays and gluon splitting into a pair of heavy quarks. The probability for a c quark to hadronise into a D*+ is found to be f(c to D*+) = 0.233 +- 0.010 (stat.) +- 0.011 (syst.). The average fraction of the beam energy carried by D*+- mesons in Z to cc events is measured to be < X_E (D*+-) >_cc = 0.4878 +- 0.0046 (stat.) +- 0.0061 (syst.). The D*+- energy and the hemisphere mass imbalance distributions are simultaneously used to measure the fraction of hadronic Z decays in which a gluon splits to a cc pair: n_{gluon to cc} = (3.23 +- 0.48 (stat.) +- 0.53 (syst.) %. The ratio of the Vector/(Vector+Pseudoscalar) production rates in charmed mesons is found to be P_V = 0.595 +- 0.045. The fractional decay width of the Z into cc pairs is determined from the sum of the production rates for various weakly decaying charmed states to be Rc = 0.1738 +- 0.0047 (stat.) +- 0.0116 (syst.).
The production of mesons containing strange quarks (K$^0_s$, $\phi$) and both singly and doubly strange baryons ($\Lambda$, Anti-$\Lambda$, and $\Xi$+Anti-$\Xi$) are measured at central rapidity in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 0.9 TeV with the ALICE experiment at the LHC. The results are obtained from the analysis of about 250 k minimum bias events recorded in 2009. Measurements of yields (dN/dy) and transverse momentum spectra at central rapidities for inelastic pp collisions are presented. For mesons, we report yields (<dN/dy>) of 0.184 $\pm$ 0.002 stat. $\pm$ 0.006 syst. for K$^0_s$ and 0.021 $\pm$ 0.004 stat. $\pm$ 0.003 syst. for $\phi$. For baryons, we find <dN/dy> = 0.048 $\pm$ 0.001 stat. $\pm$ 0.004 syst. for $\Lambda$, 0.047 $\pm$ 0.002 stat. $\pm$ 0.005 syst. for Anti-$\Lambda$ and 0.0101 $\pm$ 0.0020 stat. $\pm$ 0.0009 syst. for $\Xi$+Anti-$\Xi$. The results are also compared with predictions for identified particle spectra from QCD-inspired models and provide a baseline for comparisons with both future pp measurements at higher energies and heavy-ion collisions.
The first measurements of the invariant differential cross sections of inclusive $\pi^0$ and $\eta$ meson production at mid-rapidity in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=0.9$ TeV and $\sqrt{s}=7$ TeV are reported. The $\pi^0$ measurement covers the ranges $0.4<p_T<7$ GeV/$c$ and $0.3<p_T<25$ GeV/$c$ for these two energies, respectively. The production of $\eta$ mesons was measured at $\sqrt{s}=7$ TeV in the range $0.4<p_T<15$ GeV/$c$. Next-to-Leading Order perturbative QCD calculations, which are consistent with the $\pi^0$ spectrum at $\sqrt{s}=0.9$ TeV, overestimate those of $\pi^0$ and $\eta$ mesons at $\sqrt{s}=7$ TeV, but agree with the measured $\eta/\pi^0$ ratio at $\sqrt{s}=7$ TeV.
The ratio R of the total cross section for e+e− annihilation into hadrons to the lowest-order QED cross section for e+e−→μ+μ− has been measured for center-of-mass energies ranging from 50 to 61.4 GeV. If we allow for an overall shift of —4.9%, about 1.5 times our estimated normalization error, the results are consistent with the standard-model predictions.
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