Measurement of $\Xi^-/\bar{\Xi}^{+}$ production in jets from $Z$ boson decays with the DELPHI open data

Abstract

The production rates of $\Xi^{-}/\bar{\Xi}^{+}$ baryons in energy-ranked jets produced in $Z\to\text{hadrons}$ decays are measured using $3.2$ million hadronic $Z$ events recorded by the DELPHI experiment. Jets are reconstructed using the Durham algorithm with $y_{\text{cut}}=0.005$. Quark- and gluon-enriched jet samples are obtained by ranking the jet energies in three-jet events. The softest jet are found to produce fewer $\Xi^{-}/\bar{\Xi}^{+}$ and less energetic baryons than the other jets. The ratio of $\Xi^{-}/\bar{\Xi}^{+}$ production rates in gluon and quark jets, each normalized to the corresponding mean charged-particle multiplicity, is measured to be $1.21 \pm 0.18~\mathrm{(stat.)} \pm 0.26~\mathrm{(syst.)}$. The result is consistent with the JETSET expectation and the OPAL measurements of $K_S^0$ and $\Lambda$ productions in $Z$ decays. This study presents the first measurement of the gluon-to-quark production ratio for baryons containing two $s$ quarks, providing new insights into strange-quark production and hadronization. Future $e^{+}e^{-}$ colliders such as CEPC and FCCee will provide much larger $Z$-boson samples and will allow far more precise studies of the subject.