Hint for axial-vector contact interactions in the data on e+e- -> e+e-(gamma) at centre-of-mass energies 192-208 GeV

Abstract

For the first time the experiments ALEPH, DELPHI, L3 and OPAL have presented preliminary results for fermion-pair production in e+e- collisions on the full data set above the Z pole. A combined analysis of the Bhabha scattering measurements is performed to search for effects of contact interactions. In the case of two axial-vector (AA) currents the best fit to the data is 2.6 standard deviations away from the Standard Model expectation, corresponding to an energy scale $Λ= 10.3^{+2.8}_{-1.6}$ TeV for contact interactions. For other models no statistically significant deviations are observed, and the data are used to set lower limits at 95 % confidence level on the contact interaction scales ranging from 8.2 to 21.3 TeV, depending on the helicity structure.