Measuring $alpha_s(Q^2)$ in $tau$ Decays

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Rτ can be calculated in QCD using the Operator Product Expansion (OPE) [1, 2]. The result is: Rτ = Nc 1 + δpert [αs (m2 τ )] + δpower = Nc 1 +
2 αs (m2 αs (m2 αs (m2 τ) τ) τ) + 5.202 + 26.37 π π π 2 ¯ O6 mψψ ms + 32π 2 − 2 + ... . − 8 |Vus |2 2 mτ m4 m6 τ τ 3
BARI-TH/96-236 CERN-TH/96-125 hep-ph/9605274 May 1996
arXiv:hep-ph/9605274v1 10 May 1996
Measuring αs(Q2) in τ Decays
Maria Girone Dipartimento di Fisica, INFN Sezione di Bari, 70126 Bari, Italy and Matthias Neubert Theory Division, CERN, CH-1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland
β (αs ) = β0
αs αs + β1 4π 4π
2
+ β2
αs 4π
3
+ ... ,
(5)
and β0 = 9, β1 = 64 and β2 = 3863/6 are the first three expansion coefficients of the β -function, evaluated for nf = 3 light quark flavours. (The value of β2 is specific to the ms renormalization scheme.)
1
Introduction
One of the most accurate methods to determine αs in the low-energy region is provided by the measurement of Rτ , the τ decay rate into hadrons normalized to the leptonic decay rate: Rτ = Γ(τ → ντ + hadrons) . Γ(τ → ντ e ν ¯e ) (1)
0.35 0.3 0.25 0.2 0.15 0.1 0.26
δpert
0.28
0.3
αs(m2 τ)
0.32
0.34
0.36
0.38
Fig. 1. Different perturbative approximations for the quantity δpert : exact order-α3 s result in the ms scheme (solid line), resummation of renormalon chains (dashed line), resummation of Le Diberder and Pich (dash-dotted line). The experimental result (3) is shown as a band.
+ ... (2)
The non-perturbative power corrections in this expression are proportional to the strange-quark mass, the quark condensate, and higher-dimensional condensates. Because all contributions of dimension less than six vanish in the chiral limit, the power corrections are numerically small; using standard values of the QCD parameters, one finds δpower = −(1.4 ± 0.5)%. This, together with the fact that the perturbation series is known to third order, make Rτ a good observable to measure αs . Experimentally, Rτ is obtained from the relation Rτ = 1/Be − 1.97256, where Be is the leptonic branching ratio. Direct measurements give Be = (17.80 ± 0.06)% [3], whereas using the τ lifetime, ττ = (291.3 ± 1.6) fs [4], we obtain Be = ττ /τµ (mτ /mµ )5 = (17.84 ± 0.10)%. Averaging the two results gives Rτ = 3.642 ± 0.010, and taking into account small electroweak radiative corrections not displayed in (2) we obtain δpert [αs (m2 τ )] = 0.205 ± 0.003exp ± 0.005th . (3)
of such terms in the case of Rτ has been discussed in Refs. [8, 9]. In Fig. 1, we show the corresponding theoretical predictions for δpert as a function of αs (m2 τ ). 2 We conclude that δαs (mτ ) ≃ ±0.03 is a reasonable estimate of the truncation error. This leads to αs (m2 τ ) = 0.33 ± 0.03 , αs (m2 Z ) = 0.119 ± 0.004 . (4)
For the sake of completeness, we have translated our result into a value of αs at the mass of the Z boson. The analysis just described provides one of the best determination of the QCD coupling constant in the low-energy region. The result (4) is included in Fig. 2, which shows a collection of measurements of αs performed at different energy scales [10]. Besides τ decays, low-energy (Q ∼ 1.6–10 GeV) measurements come from deep-inelastic scattering and Υ spectroscopy and decays. At higher energies (Q ∼ 30–130 GeV), the most reliable determinations of αs come from measurements of the total cross section, jet rates and event shapes in e+ e− , pp ¯ and ep collisions. Taken all together, these measurements provide clear evidence for the “running” of the effective coupling constant αs (Q2 ), which in QCD is predicted to decrease with the momentum transfer. This property of “asymptotic freedom” [11] is one of the key predictions of QCD. Formally, it is expressed by the fact that the β -function is positive, where dαs (Q2 ) = −αs (Q2 ) β [αs (Q2 )] , d ln Q2 2
Abstract The decay rate of the τ lepton into hadrons of invariant mass smaller than Q ≫ ΛQCD can be calculated in QCD using the OPE. Using experimental data on the hadronic mass distribution, the running coupling constant αs (Q2 ) is extracted in the range 0.85 GeV < Q < mτ , where its value changes by about a factor 2. At Q = mτ , the result is αs (m2 τ ) = 0.33 ± 0.03, corresponding to αs (m2 ) = 0 . 119 ± 0 . 004. The runningቤተ መጻሕፍቲ ባይዱof the coupling Z constant is in excellent agreement with the QCD prediction based on the three-loop β -function.