A simultaneous measurement of the strong coupling and the QCD colour charges

Using data from e/sup +/e/sup -/ annihilation into hadrons, taken with the OPAL detector at LEP at the Z/sup 0/ pole between 1991 and 1995, we performed a simultaneous measurement of the strong coupling alpha /sub s/, and the colour factors of the underlying gauge group of the strong interaction, C/sub F/ and C/sub A/. The measurement was carried out by fitting next-to-leading order perturbative predictions to measured angular correlations of 4-jet events together with either a multi-jet rate or an event-shape variable. Our combined results provide a test of perturbative QCD with the assumptions only of non- abelian gauge symmetry and standard hadronization models. Our results are in agreement with SU(3) expectations for C/sub F/ and C/sub A/ and the world average of alpha /sub s/(M/sub Z0/). (19 refs).