Measurement of inclusive η production in hadronic decays of the Z0

We present a study of the inclusive η production based on 300 000 hadronic Z0 decays. The measured inclusive momentum distribution can be reproduced by parton shower Monte Carlo programs and also by an analytical QCD calculation. Comparing our results with low energy e+e- data, we find that QCD describes both the shape and the energy evolution of the η spectrum. The comparison of η production rates in quark- and gluon-enriched jet samples does not show statistically significant evidence for more abundant production of η mesons in gluon fragmentation. (orig.)