The production rates for 2-, 3-, 4- and 5-jet hadronic final states have been measured with the DELPHI detector at the e + e − storage ring LEP at centre of mass energies around 91.5 GeV. Fully corrected data are compared to O(α 2 s ) QCD matrix element calculations and the QCD scale parameter Λ MS is determined for different parametrizations of the renormalization scale ω 2 . Including all uncertainties our result is α s ( M 2 Z )=0.114±0.003[stat.]±0.004[syst.]±0.012[theor.].

Measurements are presented of the inclusive cross section for K ∗ (892) ± production in hadronic decays of the Z 0 using a sample of about half a million events recorded with the OPAL experiment at LEP. Charged K ∗ mesons are reconstructed in the decay channel K 0 S π ± . A mean rate of 0.72±0.02±0.08 K ∗ mesons per hadronic event is found. Comparison of the results with predictions of the JETSET and HERWIG models shows that JETSET overestimates the K ∗± production cross section while HERWIG is consistent with the data.

We have studied the production of D*± mesons in a sample of 1.25 million multihadronic decays of the Z0, in which 1969 candidates have been identified. We have determined the total multiplicity of charged D* mesons in multihadronic Z0 decays to be

We present an analysis of multiplicity distributions of charged particles produced inZ0 hadronic decays. The results are based on the analysis of 82941 events collected within 100 MeV of theZ0 peak energy with the OPAL detector at LEP. The charged particle multiplicity distribution, corrected for initial-state radiation and for detector acceptance and resolution, was found to have a mean 〈nch〉=21.40±0.02(stat.)±0.43(syst.) and a dispersionD=6.49±0.02(stat.)±0.20(syst.). The shape is well described by the Lognormal and Gamma distributions. A negative binomial parameterisation was found to describe the shape of the multiplicity distribution less well. A comparison with results obtained at lower energies confirms the validity of KNO(-G) scaling up to LEP energies. A separate analysis of events with low sphericity, typically associated with two-jet final states, shows the presence of features expected for models based on a stochastic production mechanism for particles. In all cases, the features observed in the data are well described by the Lund parton shower model JETSET.

The hadronic fragmentation functions of the various quark flavours and of gluons are measured in a study of the inclusive hadron production from Z 0 decays with the DELPHI detector and are compared with the fragmentation functions measured elsewhere at energies between 14 GeV and 91 GeV. A large scaling violation is observed, which is used to extract the strong coupling constant from a fit using a numerical integration of the second order DGLAP evolution equations. The result is α s ( M Z ) = 0.124 −0.007 +0.006 (exp) ± 0.009(theory) where the first error represents the experimental uncertainty and the second error is due to the factorization and renormalization scale dependence.

The$\tau$polarisation has been studied with the${\rm e^+e^-}\to \tau^+\tau^-$data collected by the DELPHI detector at LEP in

The correlated production of Lambda and Lambdabar baryons has been studied using 4.3 million multihadronic Zo decays recorded with the OPAL detector at LEP. Di-lambda pairs were investigated in the full data sample and for the first time also in 2-jet and 3-jet events selected with the k_t algorithm. The distributions of rapidity differences from correlated Lambda-Lambdabar pairs exhibit short-range, local correlations and prove to be a sensitive tool to test models, particularly for 2-jet events. The JETSET model describes the data best but some extra parameter tuning is needed to improve agreement with the experimental results in the rates and the rapidity spectra simultaneously. The recently developed modification of JETSET, the MOdified Popcorn Scenarium (MOPS), and also HERWIG do not give satisfactory results. This study of di-lambda production in 2- and 3-jet events supports the short-range compensation of quantum numbers.

The helicity density matrix elements rho[00] of rho(770)+- and omega(782) mesons produced in Z decays have been measured using the OPAL detector at LEP. Over the measured meson energy range, the values are compatible with 1/3, corresponding to a statistical mix of helicity -1, 0 and +1 states. For the highest accessible scaled energy range 0.3 < x_E < 0.6, the measured rho[00] values of the rho(770)+- and the omega are 0.373 +- 0.052 and 0.142 +- 0.114, respectively. These results are compared to measurements of other vector mesons.

The nature of b-quark jet hadronisation has been investigated using data taken at the Z peak by the DELPHI detector at LEP. Two complementary methods are used to reconstruct the energy of weakly decaying b-hadrons, E^weak_B. The average value of x^weak_B = E^weak_B/E_beam is measured to be 0.699 +/- 0.011. The resulting x^weak_B distribution is then analysed in the framework of two choices for the perturbative contribution (parton shower and Next to Leading Log QCD calculation) in order to extract measurements of the non-perturbative contribution to be used in studies of b-hadron production in other experimental environments than LEP. In the parton shower framework, data favour the Lund model ansatz and corresponding values of its parameters have been determined within PYTHIA~6.156 from DELPHI data: a= 1.84^{+0.23}_{-0.21} and b=0.642^{+0.073}_{-0.063} GeV^-2, with a correlation factor rho = 92.2%. Combining the data on the b-quark fragmentation distributions with those obtained at the Z peak by ALEPH, OPAL and SLD, the average value of x^weak_B is found to be 0.7092 +/- 0.0025 and the non-perturbative fragmentation component is extracted. Using the combined distribution, a better determination of the Lund parameters is also obtained: a= 1.48^{+0.11}_{-0.10} and b=0.509^{+0.024}_{-0.023} GeV^-2, with a correlation factor rho = 92.6%.

Infrared and collinear safe event shape distributions and their mean values are determined in e+e- collisions at centre-of-mass energies between 45 and 202 GeV. A phenomenological analysis based on power correction models including hadron mass effects for both differential distributions and mean values is presented. Using power corrections, alpha_s is extracted from the mean values and shapes. In an alternative approach, renormalisation group invariance (RGI) is used as an explicit constraint, leading to a consistent description of mean values without the need for sizeable power corrections. The QCD beta-function is precisely measured using this approach. From the DELPHI data on Thrust, including data from low energy experiments, one finds beta_0 = 7.86 +/- 0.32 for the one loop coefficient of the beta-function or, assuming QCD, n_f = 4.75 +/- 0.44 for the number of active flavours. These values agree well with the QCD expectation of beta_0=7.67 and n_f=5. A direct measurement of the full logarithmic energy slope excludes light gluinos with a mass below 5 GeV.