The cross section of W-boson pair-production is measured with the L3 detector at LEP. In a data sample corresponding to a total luminosity of 629.4 pb−1, collected at centre-of-mass energies ranging from 189 to 209 GeV, 9834 four-fermion events with W bosons decaying into hadrons or leptons are selected. The total cross section is measured with a precision of 1.4% and agrees with the Standard Model expectation. Assuming charged-lepton universality, the branching fraction for hadronic W-boson decays is measured to be: Br(W→hadrons)=67.50±0.42(stat.)±0.30(syst.)%Br(W→hadrons)=67.50±0.42(stat.)±0.30(syst.)%, in agreement with the Standard Model. Differential cross sections as a function of the W− production angle are also measured for the semi-leptonic channels qqeν and qqμν
The measurements of hadron and lepton-pair production cross sections and leptonic forward-backward asymmetries performed with the L3 detector at centre-of-mass energies between 130 GeV and 189 GeV are used to search for new physics phenomena such as: contact interactions, exchange of virtual leptoquarks, scalar quarks and scalar neutrinos, effects of TeV strings in models of quantum gravity with large extra dimensions and non-zero sizes of the fermions. No evidence for these phenomena is found and new limits on their parameters are set.
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