Measurement of the W pair production cross-section and W decay branching fractions in e+ e- interactions at S**(1/2) = 189-GeV

The L3 collaboration Acciarri, M. ; Achard, P. ; Adriani, O. ; et al.
Phys.Lett.B 496 (2000) 19-33, 2000.
Inspire Record 531766 DOI 10.17182/hepdata.49879

The data collected by the L3 experiment at LEP at a centre-of-mass energy of 188.6 GeV are used to measure the W-pair production cross section and the W-boson decay branching fractions. These data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 176.8pb^-1. The total cross section for W-pair production, combining all final states, is measured to be sigma_WW = 16.24 +/- 0.37(stat.) +/- 0.22(syst.) pb. Including our data collected at lower centre-of-mass energies, the hadronic branching fraction of the W-boson is determined to be B(W ->qq) = [68.20 +/- 0.68 (stat.) +/- 0.33 (syst.) ] %. The results agree with the Standard Model predictions.

2 data tables

Quoted cross sections with W-boson decays (i.e. W +- < ... >) mean the cross sections times the corresponding branching ratios.

VCS is the CKM matrix element.