Studies of multihadronic final states in electron positron annihilation

This thesis presents investigations of particle production in electron positron annihilation, based on data taken with the CELLO detector at the PETRA storage ring at 35 GeV centre of mass energy. The analysis comprises general aspects of ε+ε--annihilation, such as global event shapes and inclusive cross sections, and extends to fluctuations and correlations in the multihadronic final state. Various topics are covered in this analysis, among these are multiplicity distributions, intermittency, Bose-Einstein correlations and two-particle correlations. These studies give access to the perturbative and non-perturbative phase of multiparticle production, and thereby not only assist tests of Monte Carlo models, but also provide information necessary for future improvements. The data strongly support the concept of a local transition from the parton to the hadron phase, as is realized in cluster fragmentation models. In addition to the well-known Bose-Einstein effect, an apparent shift of the ρ0 meson mass is observed. It is shown that the two effects have a common origin in the interference of identical pions in ρ0π±X-+ final states. (orig.)