A measurement of the average bottom hadron lifetime

DELPHI Collaboration

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Scopus citations

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.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)397-408
Number of pages12
JournalZeitschrift fur Physik C-Particles and Fields
Volume73
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Feb 1997
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)

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