FIRST MEASUREMENT OF THE STRANGE QUARK ASYMMETRY AT THE Z(0) PEAK

A measurement of the strange quark forward-backward asymmetry at the Z0 peak was performed using 718,000 multihadronic Z0 decays collected by the DELPHI detector at LEP in 1992. The s-quark was tagged by the presence of high momentum charged kaons identified by the Ring Imaging Cherenkov detector and by Λ0;s decaying into pπ-. The s-quark purity obtained was estimated for the two hadrons to be 43%. The average s-quark asymmetry was found to be 0.131±0.035 (stat.) ±0.013 (syst.). The forward-backward asymmetry was measured for unresolved d-and s-quarks, tagged by the detection of a high energy neutron or neutral kaon in the Hadron Calorimeter. The combined d-and s-quark purity was 69% and th…