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==Experimental Results==
 
==Experimental Results==
OPAL produced its first result in 1989 using 190 nb<sup>-1</sup> collected during the first 15 days of running at LEP [3]. Using 4350 multi-hadronic events from seven energy points between 89.26 GeV and 93.26 GeV, the collaboration reported a mass m<sub>Z</sub> = 91.01 &plusmn; 0.05 &plusmn; 0.05 GeV with a width &Gamma;<sub>Z</sub> = 2.60 &plusmn; 0.13 GeV and found that there should be 3.1 &plusmn; 0.4 neutrino generations.
 
  
Hadronic events for this sample were triggered by using the electromagnetic calorimeter, the TOF, and the jet chamber. An energy sum in the calorimeter of at least 6 GeV in either the barrel or one of the endcaps is required with TOF hits in at least three nonadjacent countes. There must be at least two tracks from the interaction vertex with at least 450 MeV/c transverse momentum. The forward calorimeter could trigger if there was at least 12 GeV in both sides back-to-back or at least 15 GeV in both sides without being back-to-back. The trigger efficiency was found to be > 99.5% using a Monte Carlo simulation.
 
 
Offline cuts were made using the calorimeter and the TOF. A multihadron candidate requires at least 10 different calorimeter clusters with more than 100 MeV in each cluster, the total energy in the calorimeter is greater than 10% of the collision energy, and the ratio | R<sub>bal</sub> | = &Sigma;(E<sub>clus</sub>&bull;cos&theta;) / &Sigma;E<sub>clus</sub> &le; 0.65. Monte Carlo studies found that the acceptance for these cuts was 98.2%.
 
 
Monte Carlo calculations were made to estimate the background contamination of the sample for two photon processes, electron-pair and &tau;-pair decays of the Z<sup>0</sup>. The calculation found these backgrounds to be < 0.1%, <0.1%, and 0.3%, respectively. Using a sample of 819 events from the mass peak, the &tau; decay, beam-gas, beam-wall, and cosmic ray backgrounds were estimated. Another sample with reconstructed vertex >50 from the interaction vertex was used for just beam-wall and beam-gas backgrounds. The overall background contamination of the sample was 0.3% from the &tau;-pair decays.
 
 
The dominating systematic error of the measurement is the luminosity determination. Position calibration uncertainties and resolution effects are the main sources of this error, which results in a systematic error of 5% in the cross section measurement.
 
 
The mass of the Z<sup>0</sup> is determined by fitting a Breit-Wigner lineshape to the cross section vs. collision energy spectrum with 3 free parameters: m<sub>Z</sub>, &Gamma;<sub>Z</sub>, and a normalization factor. The three parameters were varied independently.
 
 
To constrain the number of light neutrino flavors, the fit is recalculated by replacing &Gamma;<sub>Z</sub> with &Gamma;<sub>Z</sub><sup>SM</sup> + (N<sub>&nu;</sub> - 3)&bull;&Gamma;<sub>&nu;</sub><sup>SM</sup> and varying m<sub>Z</sub> and N<sub>&nu;</sub>, but constraining the normalization constant. From the fit, the probability of N<sub>&nu;</sub> = 3 is 47% and the probability of N<sub>&nu;</sub> = 4 is 8% or that N<sub>&nu;</sub> < 3.88 at a confidence level of 90%.
 
  
 
==References==
 
==References==

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