Investigation of Quark-Antiquark Interaction Properties using Leading Particle Measurements in e+e- Annihilation

Abstract

Measurements of heavy quark production in electron-positron collisions are used to analyse the strong interactions between quarks and anti-quarks. A scaling behaviour is observed in distributions of the rapidity change of D*, B*, and B mesons. From these distributions information is obtained on the hadron formation time, effective quark masses, and the potential between quark-antiquark pairs. Predictions for fragmentation functions are presented.

Comments: 10 pages, 4 figures, fig.2 references added, revised version accepted by Physics Letters B