Production of events with hadronic and leptonic final states has been measured in e^+e^- collisions at centre-of-mass energies of 130-172 GeV, using the OPAL detector at LEP. Cross-sections and leptonic forward-backward asymmetries are presented, both including and excluding the dominant production of radiative Z \gamma events, and compared to Standard Model expectations. The ratio R_b of the cross-section for bb(bar) production to the hadronic cross-section has been measured. In a model-independent fit to the Z lineshape, the data have been used to obtain an improved precision on the measurement of \gamma-Z interference. The energy dependence of \alpha_em has been investigated. The measurements have also been used to obtain limits on extensions of the Standard Model described by effective four-fermion contact interactions, to search for t-channel contributions from new massive particles and to place limits on chargino pair production with subsequent decay of the chargino into a light gluino and a quark pair.

Cross-sections and angular distributions for hadronic and lepton pair final states in e+e- collisions at a centre-of-mass energy near 189 GeV, measured with the OPAL detector at LEP, are presented and compared with the predictions of the Standard Model. The results are used to measure the energy dependence of the electromagnetic coupling constant alpha_em, and to place limits on new physics as described by four-fermion contact interactions or by the exchange of a new heavy particle such as a sneutrino in supersymmetric theories with R-parity violation. A search for the indirect effects of the gravitational interaction in extra dimensions on the mu+mu- and tau+tau- final states is also presented.

During the LEP running periods in 1990 and 1991 DELPHI has accumulated approximately 450 000 Z 0 decays into hadrons and charged leptons. The increased event statistics coupled with improved analysis techniques and improved knowledge of the LEP beam energies permit significantly better measurements of the mass and width of the Z 0 resonance. Model independent fits to the cross sections and leptonic forward- backward asymmetries yield the following Z 0 parameters: the mass and total width M Z = 91.187 ± 0.009 GeV, Γ Z = 2.486 ± 0.012 GeV, the hadronicf and leptonic partials widths Γ had = 1.725 ± 0.012 GeV, Γ ℓ = 83.01 ± 0.52 MeV, the invisible width Γ inv = 512 ± 10 MeV, the ratio of hadronic to leptonic partial widths R ℓ = 20.78 ± 0.15, and the Born level hadronic peak cross section σ 0 = 40.90 ± 0.28 nb. Using these results and the value of α s determined from DELPHI data, the number of light neutrino species is determined to be 3.08 ± 0.05. The individual leptonic widths are found to be: Γ e = 82.93 ± 0.70 MeV, Γ μ = 83.20 ± 1.11 MeV and Γ τ = 82.89 ± 1.31 MeV. Using the measured leptonic forward-backward asymmetries and assuming lepton universality, the squared vector and axial-vector couplings of the Z 0 to charged leptons are found to be g V ℓ 2 = (1.47 ± 0.51) × 10 −3 and g A ℓ 2 = 0.2483 ± 0.0016. A full Standard Model fit to the data yields a value of the top mass m t = 115 −82 +52 (expt.) −24 +52 (Higgs) GeV, corresponding to a value of the weak mixing angle sin 2 θ eff lept = 0.2339±0.0015 (expt.) −0.0004 +0.0001 (Higgs). Values are obtained for the variables S and T , or ϵ 1 and ϵ 3 which parameterize electroweak loop effects.

Cross-sections for hadronic, b-bbar and lepton pair final states in e+e- collisions at sqrt(s) = 183 GeV, measured with the OPAL detector at LEP, are presented and compared with the predictions of the Standard Model. Forward-backward asymmetries for the leptonic final states have also been measured. Cross-sections and asymmetries are also presented for data recorded in 1997 at sqrt(s) = 130 and 136 GeV. The results are used to measure the energy dependence of the electromagnetic coupling constant alpha_em, and to place limits on new physics as described by four-fermion contact interactions or by the exchange of a new heavy particle such as a leptoquark, or of a squark or sneutrino in supersymmetric theories with R-parity violation.

We measure the forward-backward asymmetry in the production of $\Lambda_b^0$ and $\overline \Lambda_b^0$ baryons as a function of rapidity in $p \overline p $ collisions at $\sqrt s =1.96$ TeV using $10.4$ fb$^{-1}$ of data collected with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron collider. The asymmetry is determined by the preference of $\Lambda_b^0$ or $\overline \Lambda_b^0$ particles to be produced in the direction of the beam protons or antiprotons, respectively. The measured asymmetry integrated over rapidity $y$ in the range $0.1<|y|<2$ is $A=0.04 \pm 0.07 {\rm (stat)} \pm 0.02 {\rm (syst)}$.

We present a measurement of the $W$ boson production charge asymmetry in $p\bar{p}\rightarrow W+X \rightarrow e\nu +X$ events at a center of mass energy of 1.96 TeV, using 9.7 fb$^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity collected with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. The neutrino longitudinal momentum is determined using a neutrino weighting method, and the asymmetry is measured as a function of the $W$ boson rapidity. The measurement extends over wider electron pseudorapidity region than previous results, and is the most precise to date, allowing for precise determination of proton parton distribution functions in global fits.

The processes e + e − → e + e − and μ + μ − have been studied at PETRA using the JADE detector. The data, which were collected at s -values of up to 1300 GeV 2 have been analysed in terms of an electro-weak extension of QED to obtain values for the weak vector and axial vector couplings in the lepton sector. The values obtained agree with the predictions of the standard Salam-Weinberg model and the data are further analysed in terms of this model to obtain the limits 0.10 < sin 2 ϑ w < 0.40 (68% CL). The mass of the neutral weak gauge boson is deduced to be greater than 51 GeV/ c 2 .

This paper presents measurements of the production of Ds- mesons relative to Ds+ mesons as functions of x_F and square of p_t for a sample of 2445 Ds decays to phi pi. The Ds mesons were produced in Fermilab experiment E791 with 500 GeV/c pi- mesons incident on one platinum and four carbon foil targets. The acceptance-corrected integrated asymmetry in the x_F range -0.1 to 0.5 for Ds+- mesons is 0.032 +- 0.022 +- 0.022, consistent with no net asymmetry. The results, as functions of x_F and square of p_t, are compared to predictions and to the large production asymmetry observed for D+- mesons in the same experiment. These comparisons support the hypothesis that production asymmetries come from the fragmentation process and not from the charm quark production itself.

We present asymmetries between the production of D+ and D- mesons in Fermilab experiment E791 as a function of xF and pt**2. The data used here consist of 74,000 fully-reconstructed charmed mesons produced by a 500 GeV/c pi- beam on C and Pt foils. The measurements are compared to results of models which predict differences between the production of heavy-quark mesons that have a light quark in common with the beam (leading particles) and those that do not (non-leading particles). While the default models do not agree with our data, we can reach agreement with one of them, PYTHIA, by making a limited number of changes to parameters used.

A measurement of $\textit{W}$ boson production in lead-lead collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=$2.76 TeV is presented. It is based on the analysis of data collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2011 corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 0.14 $\mathrm{nb}^{-1}$ and 0.15 $\mathrm{nb}^{-1}$ in the muon and electron decay channels, respectively. The differential production yields and lepton charge asymmetry are each measured as a function of the average number of participating nucleons $< N_{\mathrm{part}} >$ and absolute pseudorapidity of the charged lepton. The results are compared to predictions based on next-to-leading-order QCD calculations. These measurements are, in principle, sensitive to possible nuclear modifications to the parton distribution functions and also provide information on scaling of $\textit{W}$ boson production in multi-nucleon systems.