We report a measurement of the lifetime of the B0 meson based upon 29-GeV e+e- annihilation data taken with the Mark II detector at the SLAC storage ring PEP. The B0 mesons are tagged by their decays into D*- and D*+, where the D*- is tagged by its decay into -D 0. We reconstruct the decay vertices of 15 B0-meson candidates and measure the B0 lifetime to be 1.20-0.360.14+0.52+0.16 psec. © 1990 The American Physical Society.

The Mark II detector has been upgraded in preparation for its role as the first detector to take data at the Stanford Linear Collider. The new detector components include the central drift chamber, the time-of-flight system, the coil, the endcap electromagnetic calorimeters and the beam energy and luminosity measuring devices. There have also been improvements in detector hermeticity. All of the major components were installed for a test run at the PEP storage ring (√s = 29 GeV) in 1985. This paper describes the upgraded detector, including its trigger and data acquisition systems, and gives performance figures for its components. Future improvements are also discussed. © 1989.

Using an impact-parameter tag to select an enriched sample of Z0bb» events, we have measured the difference between the average charged multiplicity of bb» and all hadronic Z0 decays to be 2.11.8(stat) 0.6(syst) tracks per event. The resulting total (nonleading) charged multiplicity for Z0 bb» events is 23.1(12.0)1.8 0.6 tracks. A comparison of this nonleading multiplicity to hadronic multiplicity data in the range of 10 to 60 GeV supports the hypothesis of flavor-independent hadronic fragmentation, and yields a measurement of the average energy fraction of bottom hadrons in Z0 decays of xEb=0.620.100.04. © 1992 The American Physical Society.

Using the sample of neutral vector bosons (Z's) produced at the SLAC Linear Collider and detected with the Mark II detector, we search for the decay of the Z to a pair of particles, one of which decays to two charged particles. The observed number of Z decays with this signature excludes, at a confidence level greater than 95%, the decay of the Z to a pair of fourth-generation Dirac neutrinos with mass between 2.5 and 22 GeV, a decay length less than about 1 cm, and coupling to any of the first three generations of charged leptons. This is the first time the existence of such a lepton coupling to the ± has been excluded by a direct search. © 1990 The American Physical Society.