[en] The forward-backward asymmetry in the production of beauty and charm quark-antiquark pairs in electron-positron annihilations was measured at a centre-of-mass energy corresponding to the mass of the Z⁰ particle. At this energy the asymmetry is highly sensitive to the ratio between the vector and the axial-vector coupling strengths of the quarks to the Z⁰ and through this ratio to the weak mixing angle sin²θ_w. The analysed 940,000 hadronic Z⁰ decays were recorded with the DELPHI detector at the LEP collider at CERN in 1991 and in 1992. The quarks were identified via their semileptonic decays into muons. In these decays the correlation between the charge of the muon and the charge of the decaying quark permits quarks to be distinguished from antiquarks. A method was developed to identify the flavour of the initial quark pair on a statistical basis by means of multivariate analysis. Four variables, related to the kinematical properties of the decay muon and the corresponding quark jet, were used to separate different classes of muon events. This was shown to give results with higher statistical significance than other methods commonly used for such measurements. Although the method was designed primarily to distinguish beauty-quark events from light-quark events, a sufficiently high separation power was achieved also for charm-quark events to allow the extraction of their asymmetry with a statistical uncertainty smaller than that obtained with alternative methods. The forward-backward asymmetries were determined with a maximum-likelihood fit, using the four-dimensional variable space for probability assignment. 113 refs

[en] We present recent results from the Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA) on searches for high-energy neutrinos of extraterrestrial origin. We have searched for a diffuse flux of neutrinos, neutrino point sources and neutrinos from GRBs and from WIMP annihilations in the Sun or the center of the Earth. We also present a preliminary result on the first energy spectrum above a few TeV for atmospheric neutrinos

[en] In the field of neutrino astronomy, large volumes of optically transparent matter like glacial ice, lake water, or deep ocean water are used as detector media. Elementary particle interactions are studied using in situ detectors recording time distributions and fluxes of the faint photon fields of Cherenkov radiation generated by ultra-relativistic charged particles, typically muons or electrons. The PHOTONICS software package was developed to determine photon flux and time distributions throughout a volume containing a light source through Monte Carlo simulation. Photons are propagated and time distributions are recorded throughout a cellular grid constituting the simulation volume, and Mie scattering and absorption are realised using wavelength and position dependent parameterisations. The photon tracking results are stored in binary tables for transparent access through ANSI-C and C++ interfaces. For higher-level physics applications, like simulation or reconstruction of particle events, it is then possible to quickly acquire the light yield and time distributions for a pre-specified set of light source and detector properties and geometries without real-time photon propagation. In this paper the PHOTONICS light propagation routines and methodology are presented and applied to the IceCube and ANTARES neutrino telescopes. The way in which inhomogeneities of the Antarctic glacial ice distort the signatures of elementary particle interactions, and how PHOTONICS can be used to account for these effects, is described

[en] The AMANDA high energy neutrino telescope has successfully been increased in size from four detector strings to ten detector strings during the 1996/1997 season. The first upward going muon-neutrino candidates have been reconstructed from the 1996 year's four-string data. Three new detector strings will be deployed during 1997/1998 to 2350 metres depth

[en] The first stage of the AMANDA High Energy Neutrino Detector at the South Pole, the 302 PMT array AMANDA-B with an expected effective area for TeV neutrinos of ∼ 10⁴ m², has been taking data since 1997. Progress with calibration, investigation of ice properties, as well as muon and neutrino data analysis are described. The next stage 20-string detector AMANDA-II with ∼800 PMTs will be completed in spring 2000

[en] With an effective telescope area of order 10⁴ m² for TeV neutrinos, a threshold near ∼50 GeV and a pointing accuracy of 2.5 degrees per muon track, the AMANDA detector represents the first of a new generation of high energy neutrino telescopes, reaching a scale envisaged over 25 years ago. We describe early results on the calibration of natural deep ice as a particle detector as well as on AMANDA's performance as a neutrino telescope

[en] The first stage of the AMANDA High Energy Neutrino Detector at the South Pole, the 302 PMT array AMANDA-B10, is taking data since 1997. We describe results on atmospheric neutrinos, limits on indirect WIMP detection, seasonal muon flux variation, relativistic monopole flux limits, a search for gravitational collapse neutrinos, and a depth scan of the optical ice properties. The next stage 19-string detector AMANDA-II with ∼650 PMTs will be completed in spring 2000

[en] We show new results from both the older and newer incarnations of AMANDA (AMANDA-1310 and AMANDA-II, respectively). These results demonstrate that AMANDA is a functioning, multipurpose detector with significant physics and astrophysics reach. They include a new higher-statistics measurement of the atmospheric muon neutrino flux and preliminary results from searches for a variety of sources of ultrahigh energy neutrinos: generic point sources, gamma-ray bursters and diffuse sources producing muons in the detector, and diffuse sources producing electromagnetic or hadronic showers in or near the detector

[en] We present new data taken with the AMANDA-II neutrino telescope array. The AMANDA-II upgrade was completed at the beginning of 2000. It significantly extends the sensitivity of the 10-string AMANDA-B10 detector to high- and ultrahigh-energy neutrino fluxes into regions of interest for probing current astrophysical models which remain unexplored by other experiments

[en] IceCube is a large neutrino telescope of the next generation to be constructed in the Antarctic Ice Sheet near theSouth Pole. We present the conceptual design and the sensitivity of the IceCube detector to predicted fluxes of neutrinos, both atmospheric and extra-terrestrial. A complete simulation of the detector design has been used to study the detector's capability to search for neutrinos from sources such as active galaxies, and gamma-ray bursts