DOI 10.1007/s100529800970
Bose-Einstein correlations of three charged pions
in hadronic
Z
decays
The OPAL Collaboration
K.Ackerstaff - et al.
8 CERN, European Organisation for Particle Physics, CH-1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland
Received: 7 May 1998 / Published online: 12 August 1998
Abstract
Bose-Einstein Correlations (BEC) of three identical charged pions
were studied in hadronic
decays recorded with
the OPAL detector at LEP. The genuine three-pion correlations,
corrected for the Coulomb effect, were separated from the known
two-pion correlations by a new subtraction procedure. A significant
genuine three-pion BEC enhancement near threshold was observed
having an emitter source radius of
and a strength of
. The Coulomb correction was found to increase the
value by
and to reduce r3 by
. The measured
corresponds to a value of
when one takes into account the three-pion sample
purity. A relation between the two-pion and the three-pion source
parameters is discussed.
Copyright Springer-Verlag