Experimental Results on Two-Photon Physics from LEP

This review covers selected results from the LEP experiments on the structure of quasi-real and virtual photons. The topics discussed are the total hadronic cross-section for photon-photon scattering, hadron production, jet cross-sections, heavy quark production for photon-photon scattering, photon structure functions, and cross-sections for the exchange of two virtual photons.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, to appear in Proceedings of the Ringberg Workshop 'New Trends in HERA Physics' 1999, May 30 - June 4, 199

Precision Physics at LEP

1 - Introduction 2 - Small-Angle Bhabha Scattering and the Luminosity Measurement 3 - Z^0 Physics 4 - Fits to Precision Data 5 - Physics at LEP2 6 - ConclusionsComment: Review paper to appear in the RIVISTA DEL NUOVO CIMENTO; 160 pages, LateX, 70 eps figures include

QED challenges at FCC-ee precision measurements

The expected experimental precision of the rates and asymmetries in the Future Circular Collider with electron positron beams (FCC-ee) in the centre of the mass energy range 88-365GeV considered for construction in CERN, will be better by a factor 5-200. This will be thanks to very high luminosity, factor up to $10^5$ higher than in the past LEP experiments. This poses the extraordinary challenge of improving the precision of the Standard Model predictions by a comparable factor. In particular the perturbative calculations of the trivial QED effects, which have to be removed from the experimental data, are considered to be a major challenge for almost all quantities to be measured at FCC-ee. The task of this paper is to summarize on the "state of the art" in this class of the calculations left from the LEP era and to examine what is to be done to match the precision of the FCC-ee experiments -- what kind of technical advancements are necessary. The above analysis will be done for most important observables of the FCC-ee like the total cross sections near $Z$ and $WW$ threshold, charge asymmetries, the invisible width of $Z$ boson, the spin asymmetry from $\tau$ lepton decay and the luminosity measurement.Comment: Corrected author's name in ref. [106

ANOMALOUS GAUGE BOSON INTERACTIONS

We discuss the direct measurement of the trilinear vector boson couplings in present and future collider experiments. The major goals of such experiments will be the confirmation of the Standard Model (SM) predictions and the search for signals of new physics. We review our current theoretical understanding of anomalous trilinear gauge boson self-interactions. If the energy scale of the new physics is $\sim 1$ TeV, these low energy anomalous couplings are expected to be no larger than ${\cal O}(10^{-2})$. Constraints from high precision measurements at LEP and low energy charged and neutral current processes are critically reviewed.Comment: 53 pages with 17 embedded figures, LaTeX, uses axodraw.sty, figures available on request. The complete paper, is available at ftp://phenom.physics.wisc.edu/pub/preprints/1995/madph-95-871.ps.Z or http://phenom.physics.wisc.edu/pub/preprints/1995/madph-95-871.ps.Z Summary of the DPF Working Subgroup on Anomalous Gauge Boson Interactions of the DPF Long Range Planning Stud

Isolated Lepton Production at Colliders

The production of isolated leptons with high transverse momentum in high energy e-e, p-p or e-p collisions is reviewed. The leptons are produced either through boson splitting or by boson-boson collision and yield experimentally simple and spectacular topologies which can be exploited to validate the Standard Model or to search for new phenomena.Comment: 50 page

The Higgs puzzle: experiment and theory

The present experimental and theoretical knowledge of the physics of electroweak symmetry breaking is reviewed. Data still favor a light Higgs boson, of a kind that can be comfortably accommodated in the Standard Model or in its Minimal Supersymmetric extension, but exhibit a non-trivial structure that leaves some open questions. The available experimental information may still be reconciled with the absence of a light Higgs boson, but the price to pay looks excessive. Recent theoretical ideas, linking the weak scale with the size of possible extra spatial dimensions, are briefly mentioned. It is stressed once more that experiments at high-energy colliders, such as the Tevatron and the LHC, are the crucial tool for eventually solving the Higgs puzzle.Comment: 18 pages, 13 figures, invited talk at the 20th International Symposium on Lepton and Photon Interactions at High Energies (Lepton Photon 01), Rome, Italy, 23-28 July 200

Invisible Z-Boson Decays at e+e- Colliders

The measurement of the invisible Z-boson decay width at e+e- colliders can be done "indirectly", by subtracting the Z-boson visible partial widths from the Z-boson total width, or "directly", from the process e+e- -> \gamma \nu \bar{\nu}. Both procedures are sensitive to different types of new physics and provide information about the couplings of the neutrinos to the Z-boson. At present, measurements at LEP and CHARM II are capable of constraining the left-handed Z\nu\nu-coupling, 0.45 <~ g_L <~ 0.5, while the right-handed one is only mildly bounded, |g_R| <= 0.2. We show that measurements at a future e+e- linear collider at different center-of-mass energies, \sqrt{s} = MZ and \sqrt{s}s ~ 170 GeV, would translate into a markedly more precise measurement of the Z\nu\nu-couplings. A statistically significant deviation from Standard Model predictions will point toward different new physics mechanisms, depending on whether the discrepancy appears in the direct or the indirect measurement of the invisible Z-width. We discuss some scenarios which illustrate the ability of different invisible Z-boson decay measurements to constrain new physics beyond the Standard Model

Eleven Years of QCD at LEP

Studies of hadronic final states of $e^+e^-$ annihilations, observed at the Large Electron Positron Collider LEP at CERN, are reviewed. The topics included cover measurements of $\alpha_s$, hadronic event shapes and hadronisation studies, tests of asymptotic freedom and of the non-Abelian gauge structure of QCD, differences between quark and gluon jets, tests of power corrections and selected results of two-photon scattering processes. The improvements obtained at LEP are demonstrated by comparing to results from the pre-LEP era. This article consists of a reproduction of slides presented at the LEPFest in October 2000, supplemented by a short descriptive text and a list of relevant references.Comment: 10 pages of text plus reproduction of 27 transparencies presented at the LEPFest at CERN, October 2000. To be published in Eur. Phys. Jour (direct) C; a higher resolution version of the viewgraphs can be obtained from: http://www.mppmu.mpg.de/~bethke/LEPQCDtalk-higres.pd