Measurement of the W mass and width in e e collisions at 189 GeV

Abstract

Abstract.

The mass of the W boson is determined in ee collisions at LEP by the direct reconstruction of W decays in and events, supplemented by measurements using the kinematic properties of the leptons in the decay channel. The main sample of W pairs is selected from an integrated luminosity of 174 pb collected with the ALEPH detector in 1998 at a centre-of-mass energy of 188.63 GeV. The combined result from all channels is

where FSI represents the possible effects of final state interactions in the channel. In a second two-parameter fit to the , and channels, where the W mass and width are decoupled, the average W width is found to be { GeV/}, consistent with the Standard Model prediction. The combination of the mass measurement presented in this paper together with those derived previously from the W pair cross section at 161 and 172 GeV and direct reconstruction at 172 and 183 GeV gives