First measurements of hadronic decays of the<i>Z</i>boson

Abstract

We have observed hadronic final states produced in the decays of Z bosons. In order to study the parton structure of these events, we compare the distributions in sphericity, thurst, aplanarity, and number of jets to the predictions of several QCD-based models and to data from lower energies. The data and models agree within the present statistical precision.