R. Barate et al., A direct measurement of vertical bar V-cs vertical bar in hadronic W decays using a charm tag, PHYS LETT B, 465(1-4), 1999, pp. 349-362
The inclusive charm production rate in W decays is measured from a study of
the properties of final state particles. The sample of W pairs is selected
from 67.7 pb(-1) collected by ALEPH in 1996 and 1997 at centre-of-mass ene
rgies near 172 and 183 GeV in the channels W+W- --> 4q and W+W- --> l <nu q
(q)over bar>. The branching fraction of hadronic W decays to a final state
containing a c quark, R-c(W) = Gamma(W --> hadrons), is measured to be 0.51
+/- 0.05(stat) +/- 0.03(syst). This allows a direct determination of the C
KM matrix element \V-cs\ = 1.00 +/- 0.11(stat) +/- 0.07(syst). (C) 1999 Pub
lished by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.