A measurement of the average bottom hadron lifetime

K Ackerstaff; G Alexander; J Allison; N Altekamp; K Ametewee; KJ Anderson; S Anderson; S Arcelli; S Asai; D Axen; G Azuelos; AH Ball; E Barberio; RJ Barlow; R Bartoldus; JR Bailey; J Bechtluft; C Beeston; T Behnke; AN Bell; KW Bell; G Bella; S Bentvelsen; P Berlich; S Bethke; O Biebel; V Blobel; IJ Bloodworth; JE Bloomer; M Bobinski; P Bock; HM Bosch; M Boutemeur; BT Bouwens; S Braibant; RM Brown; HJ Burckhart; C Burgard; R Bürgin; P Capiluppi; RK Carnegie; AA Carter; JR Carter; CY Chang; DG Charlton; D Chrisman; PEL Clarke; I Cohen; JE Conboy; OC Cooke; M Cuffiani; S Dado; C Dallapiccola; GM Dallavalle; S De Jong; LA Del Pozo; K Desch; MS Dixit; E Do Couto E Silva; M Doucet; E Duchovni; G Duckeck; IP Duerdoth; JEG Edwards; PG Estabrooks; HG Evans; M Evans; F Fabbri; P Fath; F Fiedler; M Fierro; HM Fischer; R Folman; DG Fong; M Foucher; A Fürtjes; P Gagnon; A Gaidot; JW Gary; J Gascon; SM Gascon-Shotkin; NI Geddes; C Geich-Gimbel; FX Gentit; T Geralis; G Giacomelli; P Giacomelli; R Giacomelli; V Gibson; WR Gibson; DM Gingrich; D Glenzinski; J Goldberg; MJ Goodrick; W Gorn; C Grandi; E Gross; J Grunhaus; M Gruwé; C Hajdu

Journal article

A measurement of the average bottom hadron lifetime

K Ackerstaff, G Alexander, J Allison, N Altekamp, K Ametewee, KJ Anderson, S Anderson, S Arcelli, S Asai, D Axen, G Azuelos, AH Ball, E Barberio, RJ Barlow, R Bartoldus, JR Bailey, J Bechtluft, C Beeston, T Behnke, AN Bell Show all

Zeitschrift Fur Physik C Particles and Fields | SPRINGER | Published : 1997

DOI: 10.1007/s002880050329

Abstract

The average b hadron lifetime, τb, has been measured using approximately 3.5 million hadronic events collected with the OPAL detector at LEP between 1991 and 1994. A lifetime tag based on a neural network algorithm was used to select Z0 → bb̄ events. A secondary vertex reconstructed on the opposite side from the b-tag was used to measure the b hadron decay length. This was combined with an estimate of the b hadron momentum, allowing the b hadron decay time to be evaluated. The lifetime, τb = 1.611 ± 0.010 (stat) ± 0.027 (syst) ps , was extracted from a fit involving the distribution of the 95620 decay times reconstructed in the data and the corresponding distribution in Monte Carlo. © Spring..

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