Improved search for $B^0_s-\overline{B}^0_s$ oscillations

An improved search for Bs oscillations is performed in the ALEPH data sample collected during the first phase of LEP, and reprocessed in 1998. Three analyses based on complementary event selections are presented. First, decays of Bs mesons into hadronic flavour eigenstates are fully reconstructed. This selection yields a small sample of candidates with excellent decay length and momentum resolution and high average Bs purity. Semileptonic decays with a reconstructed Ds- meson provide a second sample with larger statistics, high average Bs purity, but a poorer momentum and decay length resolution due to the partial decay reconstruction. Finally, semileptonic b-hadron decays are inclusively selected and yield the data sample with the highest sensitivity to Bs oscillations, as the much higher statistics compensate for the low average Bs purity and poorer time resolution. A lower limit is set at 10.9 ps-1 at 95% CL, significantly lower than the expected limit of 15.7 ps-1.