Spin alignment in heavy and light flavour systems at OPAL

Spin alignment of inclusive vector mesons and longitudinal polarization of Lambda hyperons have been measured in a sample of 4.3 million hadronic Z/sup 0/ decays from the OPAL detector at LEP. Leading, light vector mesons have been $9 found to populate preferentially the helicity-zero state, a result which has no firm theoretical explanation. The values of off-diagonal elements of the helicity density matrix are in agreement with a theory based on the Standard $9 Model with coherent fragmentation. The longitudinal polarization of the Lambda is well described by a model in which the constituent strange quark carries all of the hyperon spin.