Inclusive Λ production has been studied in K − p interactions at 8.25 GeV/ c using about 69 000 events; the total cross section is found to be 3.35 ± 0.20 mb. A comparison has been made with Σ 0 and Σ(1385) inclusive production. Their influence on the inclusive Λ production is discussed. The inclusive Λ cross section and polarization is interpreted in terms of the triple-Regge model. In the target fragmentation region an effective Regge trajectory is determined which lies closer to the K than to the K ∗ . In the beam fragmentation region the cross-section data indicate an effective Regge trajectory which corresponds to the nucleon, while the polarization data require additional Regge exchanges to be present.

J/ψ production on hydrogen and tungsten targets has been compared at 39.5 GeV/ c and the variation of the A -dependence of the J/ψ cross section as a function of p t 2 and x F has been measured. The A -dependence parameter, α, rises with increasing p t 2 and falls with increasing x F . Both effects are shown not to be due to the Fermi motion of nucleons in the tungsten nucleus.

J/ ψ production at 40 GeV/ c by π ± , K ± , p and p incident on hydrogen has been studied and results compared with those obtained on tungsten in the same experiment. On hydrogen, J/ψ cross-section ratios relative to π − have been measured to be (for x F > 0) σ(π − ) : σ(π + ) : σ( p ) : σ( p ) = 1 : (0.78 ± 0.09) : (0.83 ± 0.35) : (0.07 ± 0.04) . The suppression of the proton induced cross sections shows the importance of calence quark-antiquark fusiin J/ψ production at this energy (i.e. M J 2 / ψ / s =0.13).

From 1.4 million hadronic Z decays collected by the ALEPH detector at LEP, an enriched sample of Z → cc̄ events is extracted by requiring the presence of a high momentum D ∗± . The charm quark forward-backward charge asymmetry at the Z pole is measured to be A FB 0. c = (8.0 ± 2.4) % corresponding to an effective electroweak mixing angle of sin 2 θ W eff = 0.2302 ± 0.0054.

B B production in π − -uranium interactions has been observed at 320 GeV beam energy looking at events with three muons in the final state. The cross section is found to be σ B B = 4.5±1.4±1.4 nb per nucleon (for a linear A -dependence) or σ B B = 17.6±5.5±5.5 nb per nucleon (assuming A 0.75 dependence). An estimate of x F distribution is given.

None

We summarize the results obtained in the UA1 experiment on the production of bottom quarks in proton-antiproton collisions at √ s =0.63 TeV. Independent muon data samples are used to determine the bottom quark production cross section in different transverse momentum ranges from 6 to 30 GeV. A recent theoretical calculation to O(α s 3 ) of the inclusive bottom quark transverse momentum spectrum in hadronic collisions shows reasonable agreement with the data. We extrapolate the integral P T distribution to P T =0 and in rapidity to estimate the total cross section forthe production of bottom quark pairs. Assuming the shape in P T and rapidity given by the O(α s 3 ) calcultaion, we obtain σ( p p→b b +X) = 10.2 ±3.3 μb .

The polarization of Λ baryons from Z decays is studied with the Aleph apparatus. Evidence of longitudinal polarization of s quarks from Z decay is observed for the first time. The measured longitudinal Λ polarization is P L Λ = −0.32 ± 0.07 for z = p p beam > 0.3 . This agrees with the prediction of −0.39 ± 0.08 from the standard model and the constituent quark model, where the error is due to uncertainties in the mechanism for Λ production. The observed Λ polarization is diluted with respect to the primary s quark polarization by Λ baryons without a primary s quark. Measurements of the Λ forward-backward asymmetry and of the correlation between back-to-back Λ Λ pairs are used to check this dilution. In addition the transverse Λ polarization is measured. An indication of transverse polarization, more than two standard deviations away from zero, is found along the normal to the plane defined by the thrust axis and the Λ direction.

We report evidence for the production of the charged D ∗ mesons in pp̄ collisions at s = 540 GeV . The search was confined to the charged particle fragments of hadronic jets, which are expected to be predominantly gluon jets in this experiment. The fragmentation function and production rate for D ∗ in jets of average transverse momentum of 28 GeV/ c are given.

Charged particle multiplicity distributions have been measured with the ALEPH detector in restricted rapidity intervals |Y| ≤0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 along the thrust axis and also without restriction on rapidity. The distribution for the full range can be parametrized by a log-normal distribution. For smaller windows one finds a more complicated structure, which is understood to arise from perturbative effects. The negative-binomial distribution fails to describe the data both with and without the restriction on rapidity. The JETSET model is found to describe all aspects of the data while the width predicted by HERWIG is in significant disagreement.

A lower limit on the oscillation frequency of the B s 0 B s 0 system is obtained from approximately four million hadronic Z decays accumulated using the ALEPH detector at LEP from 1991 to 1995. Leptons are combined with opposite sign D s − candidates reconstructed in seven different decay modes as evidence of semileptonic B s 0 decays. Criteria designed to ensure precise proper time reconstruction select 277D s − ℓ + combinations. The initial state of these B s 0 candidates is determined using an algorithm optimized to efficiently utilise the tagging information available for each event. The limit at 95% confidence level on the B s 0 B s 0 oscillation frequency is Δm s > 6.6 ps −1 . The same data is used to update the measurement of the B s 0 lifetime, τ s = 1.54 −0.13 +0.14 (stat) ± 0.04 (syst) ps.

A sample of about 1.4 million hadronic Z decays, selected among the data recorded by the DELPHI detector at LEP during 1994, was used to measure for the first time the momentum spectra of K + , K 0 , p , Λ and their antiparticles in gluon and quark jets. As observed for inclusive charged particles, the production spectra of identified particles were found to be softer in gluon jets than in quark jets, with a higher total multiplicity.

With a segmented total absorption calorimeter of large acceptance, we have measured the total transverse energy spectrum for pp̄ collisions at s 1 2 = 540 GeV up to ΣE T = 130 GeV in the pseudo-rapidity range | η |< 1.5. Using two different algorithms, we have looked for localized depositions of transverse energy (jets). For ΣE T > 40 GeV , the fraction of events with two jets increases with Σ E T ; this event structure is dominant for ΣE T > 100 GeV. We measure the inclusive jet cross section up to E T (jet) = 60 GeV and the two-jets mass distribution to 120 GeV/ c 2 . The measured cross sections are compatible with the predictions of hard scattering models based on QCD.

A measurement of the inclusive production of π0 mesons in hadronic Z decays is presented and compared to Monte Carlo model predictions. The analysis is based on approximately 2 million hadronic events recorded with the ALEPH detector at LEP at a centre-of-mass energy of ⊡s = 91.2 GeV. Neutral pions are reconstructed using photons measured in the electromagnetic calorimeter and photons from conversion pairs. The inclusive π0 momentum spectrum is measured in the range 0.025 < xp = p/pbeam < 1. In this range the number of π0 per hadronic Z is found to be 4.80 ± 0.07(stat) ± 0.31(sys). The differential inclusive π0 cross section is also measured as a function of transverse momentum with respect to the event plane (pTin and pTout).

We report the observation of 21 dimuon events at the CERN p p Collider with the UA1 detector. The events range in invariant dimuon mass from 2 to 22 GeV / c 2 . The properties of these events are given. The bulk of the events are consistent with heavy-flavour production (mainly b b ) with a few candidates for Drell-Yan production. There remain a few events which are difficult to interpret in terms of these processes, in particular two events with isolated, like-sign muons.

A sample of two-jet events from the UA1 experiment at the CERN $p \bar{p}$ Collider has been used to study the fragmentation of high-energy quark and gluon jets into charged hadrons. Compared with lower-energy jets observed in $e^+ e^−$ and $pp$ collisions, the fragmentation function measured in the present experiment is softer (i.e. peaked to smaller values of z) and the mean internal transverse momentum is larger, mainly because of the effects of the QCD scaling violations. Using our knowledge of the quark and gluon structure functions in the proton, together with the QCD matrix elements, a statistical separation of quark and gluon jets is achieved within the present experiment. The fragmentation function for the gluon jets is found to be softer, and the angular spread of the fragmentation products larger, than is the case for quark jets.

A study of scaling violations in fragmentation functions performed by the ALEPH collaboration at LEP is presented. Data samples enriched in uds, c, b and gluon jets, respectively, together with measurements of the longitudinal and transverse inclusive cross sections are used to extract the fragmentation function for the gluon and for each flavour. The measurements are compared to data from experiments at energies between 22 GeV and 91 GeV and scaling violations consistent with QCD predictions are observed. From this, a measurement of the strong coupling constant α s ( Mz ) = 0.126 ±0.009 is obtained.

The inclusive production of D ∗± mesons in photon-photon collisions has been measured by the Aleph experiment at LEP with a beam energy of 45 GeV. The D ∗+ are detected in their decay to D 0 π + with the D 0 observed in three separate decay modes: (1) K − π + , (2) K − π + π 0 and (3) K − π + π − π + , and analagously for the D ∗− modes. A total of 33 events was observed from an integrated luminosity of 73 pb −1 which corresponds to a cross section for Σ( e + e − → e + e − D ∗± X ) of 155 ± 33 ± 21 pb. This result is compatible with both the direct production γγ → c c in the Born approximation and with a more complete calculation which includes both radiative QCD corrections and contributions in which one of the photons is first resolved into its quark and gluon constituents. The shapes of distributions for events containing a D ∗+ are found to be better described by the latter.

The production of transverse energy clusters in minimum bias proton-antiproton collisions at the CERN SPS Collider is studied with the UA1 detector over a new range of centre of mass energies (√ s = 0.2−0.9 TeV). This study is intended to investigate how low in transverse momentum perturbative QCD is able to describe the dynamics of hadron collisions. We observe that clusters with transverse energy in excess of a few GeV exhibit properties in agreement with QCD expectations for parton scattering, supporting their interpretation in terms of jet production. We find that the jet-event rate represents a sizeable fraction of the inelastic rate and is increasing with √ s over the measured energy range.

Angular distributions of high-mass jet pairs (180< m 2 J <350 GeV) have been measured in the UA1 experiment at the CERN pp̄ Collider ( s =630 GeV ) . We show that angular distributions are independent of the subprocess centre-of-mass (CM) energy over this range, and use the data to put constraints on the definition of the Q 2 scale. The distribution for the very high mass jet pairs (240< m 2 J <300 GeV) has also been used to obtain a lower limit on the energy scale Λ c of compositeness of quarks. We find Λ c >415 GeV at 95% confidence level.

Isolated photons, produced directly by a scattering process, have been observed in the UA1 experiment at the CERN p p collider at centre-of-mass energies √=546 GeV and √=630 GeV . Single and double photon differential cross sections have been determined and found to be consistent with the expectations of QCD.

An improved measurement of the forward-backward asymmetry in Z →b b ̄ decays is presented, based on a sample of 4.1 million hadronic Z decays collected by ALEPH between 1991 and 1995. Data are analysed as a function of polar angle of the event axis and b purity. The event tagging efficiency and mean b -jet hemisphere charge are measured directly from data. From the measured forward-backward jet charge asymmetry, the b quark asymmetry at s =m Z is determined to be: A b FB =0.1017±0.0038(stat.)±0.0032(syst.). In the context of the Standard Model this corresponds to a value of the effective weak mixing angle of sin 2 θ W eff =0.23109±0.00096.

We present a study of low mass dimuon events [ m ( μμ ) < 6 GeV/ c 2 ] from the UA1 experiment at the CERN p p collider. Contributions from semileptonic decays of heavy flavour particles, Drell-Yan type processes, J/ψ decays and leptonic decays of light mesons are extracted, and cross sections for high p T beauty and Drell-Yan production are derived. A limit for the branching fraction for the exotic decay B 0 →μ + μ − is also obtained. The cross section for section for low mass, high p T Drell-Yan prod uction is compared to the measured direct photon cross section using QED and QCD derived relationship. This relationship is used to infer a measurement of the single photon cross section at lower values of transverse momentum, where photons cannot be unambigously identified.

We have measured transverse momentum spectra up to 10 GeV/ c for charged particles produced centrally in proton-antiproton collisions at 540 GeV in the centre of mass at the CERN collider. Our results are compared with data at ISR energies and with the predictions of a QCD model. The charged particle spectrum shows a clear dependence on charged track multiplicity.

Results are presented on two-jet and three-jet cross sections, measured in the UA1 experiment at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) pp̄ Collider, at the highest available subprocess cms energies ( s ̂ >150 GeV ). Precise measurements of the two-jet angular distribution are consistent with previous results but show significant scale-breaking effects. The three-jet Dalitz plot and the three-jet angular distributions show evidence for final- and initial-state bremsstrahlung processes, in agreement with the leading-order QCD predictions. A comparison of the yield of wide-angle three-jet events with the yield of two-jet events at smaller scattering angles gives for the strong interaction coupling constant: α s ( K 3J K 2J )=0.16±0.02±0.03 at Q 2 ≈4000 GeV 2 , where the factor K 3J K 2J may plausibly be assumed to be close to unity.