The contributions of the PLUTO experiment to e + e − physics at collision energies in the range of 3–32 GeV are reviewed. The review briefly sketches the storage rings DORIS and PETRA at DESY, and describes the most important features of the PLUTO detector, of data processing, and of the analysis methods. It covers the physics results in the fields of electroweak interactions, of the heavy lepton τ and the search for still heavier leptons, of hadron production with evidence for quark and gluon jets, as well as for single and multiple gluon emission, of Y decays and their relation to QCD, and presents results in high-energy photon-photon interactions, including the first measurement of the photon structure function.
The inclusive production of antiprotons and Λ's in e+e− annihilation has been measured as a function of the c.m. energy in the range 3.7-7.6 GeV. We find that the baryon cross section has a behavior different from the total hadronic production. Our results show a rapid rise in the ratio σp¯σμμ between 4.4 and 5 GeV, consistent with what would be expected from charmed baryon production. Λ¯ production is 10-15% of p¯ production at all energies.
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