Measurement of Z0 decays to hadrons, and a precise determination of the number of neutrino species

Abstract We have made a precise measurement of the cross section for e + e − →Z 0 →hadrons with the L3 detector at LEP, covering the s range from 88.28 to 95.04 GeV. From a fit to the Z 0 mass, total width, and the hadronic cross section to be M Z 0 =91.160 ± 0.024 (experiment) ±0.030(LEP) GeV, Γ Z 0 =2.539±0.054 GeV, and σ h ( M Z 0 )=29.5±0.7 nb. We also used the fit to the Z 0 peak cross section and the width todetermine Γ invisible =0.548±0.029 GeV, which corresponds to 3.29±0.17 species of light neutrinos. The possibility of four or more neutrino flavors is thus ruled out at the 4σ confidence level.