Strange quark mass from τ decays

Abstract

Mass corrections to the τ hadronic width play a signicant role only for the strange quark. A complete determination of the τ decays into strange hadronic final states has been performed by ALEPH and the total strange spectral function determined. The analysis leading to the determination of ms is revisited using reasonable theoretical constraints on the nonperturbative components and incorporating new results on strange decay modes from other experiments. The result, ms(m2τ) = (112 ± 23) MeV, is stable over the scale from m2τ down to about 2 GeV2.