Study of Bose-Einstein Correlations in e+e- -> W+W- events at LEP

TL;DR

This study investigates Bose-Einstein correlations in W+W- events at LEP, finding no evidence for inter-WW correlations and comparing data with Monte Carlo predictions.

Contribution

It applies new methods to search for inter-W Bose-Einstein correlations in W+W- events and provides experimental results at LEP energies.

Findings

No evidence for inter-WW Bose-Einstein correlations

Data consistent with Monte Carlo predictions

Methods enable direct correlation searches in collider data

Abstract

Bose-Einstein correlation between like-sign charged-particle pairs in e+e- -> W+W- events recorded with the OPAL detector at LEP at centre-of-mass energies between 183 GeV and 209 GeV are studied. Recently proposed methods which allow direct searches for correlations in the data via distributions of test variables are used to investigate the presence of correlations between hadrons originating from different W bosons in W+W- -> qqqq events. Within the statistics of the data sample no evidence for inter-WW Bose-Einstein correlations is obtained. The data are also compared with predictions of a recent implementation of Bose-Einstein correlation effects in the Monte Carlo model PYTHIA.