We searched for possible signatures of top-quark production in 508 e+e− hadronic annihilation events collected at s=52 GeV by the TOPAZ detector at the KEK e+e− collider TRISTAN. The observed hadronic cross section and shape of hadronic events are consistent with the standard-model predictions without top quarks. A lower limit (95% confidence level) on the mass of the lightest top meson is set at 25.8 GeV.
We accumulated e + e − annihilations into multi-hadrons at CM energies between 54.0 and 61.4 GeV with the VENUS detector at TRISTAN. Measured R -ratios are consistent with the standard model using the Z-boson mass; 91.1 GeV/ c 2 . Using two new observables, we searched for a planar four-jet and other multi-jet events resulting from the decay of a charge — 1 3 e b ' quark. Having observed no positive signals, we excluded b' masses between 19.4 and 28.2 GeV/ c 2 with a 95% confidence level, regardless of branching into charged current and loop-induced flavor-changing neutral current decay, including a possible Higgs decay process. The charge + 2 3 e top quark was excluded below f30.2 GeV/ c 2 .
The total e + e − annihilation onto hadron has been measured at CM energies between 33.00 and 36.72 GeV and between 38.66 and 46.78 GeV in steps of 20 and 30 MeV respectively. The average of the ratio R = σ ( e + e − → hadrons )/ σ is 〈 R 〉=3.85±0.12 and 〈 R 〉=4.04±0.10 for the two energy ranges. The systematic error on 〈 R 〉 is 0.31. Both values are consistent with the expectation for the known coloured quarks u, d, s, c and b. No evidence was found for the production of new quarks. If the largest fluctuation in R is interpreted as a narrow resonance, it corresponds to a product of the electronic width and the hadronic branching ratio Γ ee B had >2.9 keV at the 95% confidence level, well below the value expected for the toponium vector ground state with charge 2 3 e . The observed number of aplanar final states rules out the continuum production of a a new heavy flavour with pointlike cross section up to a CM energy of 45.4 GeV for a quarck charge of 1 3 e . and up to 46.6 GeV for 2 3 e at the 95% confidence level.