Hadronic Cross Sections In Electron Positron Annihilation With Tagged Photon PDF Download

This thesis describes the most precise measurement to date of the ratio R, the hadronic cross section in lowest order electron-positron annihilation to the cross section for muon pair production in lowest order electron-positron annihilation. This experiment is of interest because R is a fundamental parameter that tests in a model independent way the basic assumptions of strong interaction theories. According to the assumptions of one of these theories the value of R is determined simply from the electric charges, spin, and color assignments of the produced quark-pairs. The experiment was carried out with the MAgnetic Calorimeter using collisions of 14.5 GeV electrons and positrons at the 2200m circumference PEP storage ring at SLAC. The MAC detector is one of the best-suited collider detectors for measuring R due to its nearly complete coverage of the full angular range. The data for this experiment were accumulated between February 1982 and April 1983 corresponding to a total event sample of about 40,000 hadronic events. About 5% of the data were taken with 14 GeV beams and the rest of the data were taken with 14.5 GeV beams. A description of particle interactions and experimental considerations is given.