Charged and Identified Particles in the Hadronic Decay of W Bosons and in e+e- -> q qbar from 130 to 200 GeV

Inclusive distributions of charged particles in hadronic W decays are experimentally investigated using the statistics collected by the DELPHI experiment at LEP during 1997, 1998 and 1999, at centre-of-mass energies from 183 to around 200 GeV. The possible effects of interconnection between the hadronic decays of two Ws are not observed. Measurements of the average multiplicity for charged and identified particles in q (q) over bar and WW events at centre-of-mass energies from 130 to 200 GeV and in W decays are presented. The results on the average multiplicity of identified particles and on the position xi* of the maximum of the xi (p) = -log(2p/roots) distribution are compared with predictions of JETSET and MLLA calculations.