Related papers: $\alpha_s$ from an improved $\tau$ vector isovecto…
The determination of $\alpha_s$ from hadronic $\tau$ decays is revisited, with a special emphasis on the question of higher-order perturbative corrections and different possibilities of resumming the perturbative series with the…
The decay tau- -> 2pi- pi+ 3pi0 nu_tau has been studied with the CLEO II detector at the Cornell Electron Storage Ring (CESR). The branching fraction is measured to be (2.85 +/- 0.56 +/- 0.51) x 10^(-4). The result is in good agreement with…
The four-loop determination of the strong coupling from fully inclusive observables is reviewed. Special attention is given to the low-energy measurement extracted from the hadronic $\tau$ decay width. A recent exhaustive analysis of the…
Measurements of the tau lepton polarization and forward-backward polarization asymmetry near the Z resonance using the OPAL detector are described. The measurements are based on analyses of tau -> e nu_e nu_tau, tau -> mu nu_mu nu_tau, tau…
We discuss a new class of expansions in perturbative QCD, based on the technique of conformal mappings of the Borel plane, and apply them for the determination of $\alpha_s$ from the hadronic decays of the $\tau$ lepton. Using the expansion…
The problem of determination of $\alpha_{s}$ and the condensates from the moments of invariant mass distribution in the semileptonic tau decays is considered. It is investigated how the extracted values of alpha_s(m^{2}_{tau}) and the…
We discuss some key issues associated with duality-violating and non-perturbative OPE contributions to the theoretical representations of light quark current-current two-point functions and relevant to precision determinations of alpha_s…
Using recently developed methods for the evaluation of five-loop amplitudes in perturbative QCD, corrections of order alpha_s^4 for the cross section of electron-positron annihilation into hadrons and for the decay rates of the Z-boson and…
Hadronic $\tau$ decays provide a clean laboratory for the precise study of quantum chromodynamics (QCD). Observables based on the spectral functions of hadronic $\tau$ decays can be related to QCD quark-level calculations to determine…
The decay K- -> pi0 e- nu has been studied using in-flight decays detected with the "ISTRA+" spectrometer working at the 25 GeV negative secondary beam of the U-70 PS. About 550K events were used for the analysis. The lambda+ parameter of…
OPE constraints are studied as a means of distinguishing between the versions of the I=1 vector spectral function extracted from (i) inclusive I=1 hadronic electroproduction cross-sections and (ii) inclusive I=1 hadronic tau decay data,…
Until recently, determinations of alpha_s(M_Z) from hadronic tau decays and the analysis of short-distance-sensitive lattice observables yielded results which, though precise, were not in good agreement. I review new analyses that bring…
In a combined study of the decay spectra of $\tau^-\to K_S\pi^-\nu_\tau$ and $\tau^-\to K^-\eta\nu_\tau$ decays within a dispersive representation of the required form factors, we illustrate how the $K^*(1410)$ resonance parameters, defined…
We present a study of tau- --> pi- K0S K0S (pi0) nu and tau- --> K- K0S K0S (pi0) nu decays using a dataset of 430 million tau lepton pairs, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 468 fb-1, collected with the BaBar detector at the…
Recent experimental data for the differential decay distribution of the decay $\tau^-\to\nu_\tau K_S\pi^-$ by the Belle collaboration are described by a theoretical model which is composed of the contributing vector and scalar form factors…
With the newly available data sets on hadronic tau decays from the B-factories BABAR and BELLE, and future data from BESIII, precise information on the decay distributions will soon become available. This calls for an improvement of the…
The results of two methods to extract the strong coupling constant, $\alpha_s$, are reviewed for the LEP experiments. In the first, scaling violations in the scaled momentum distributions of charged particles at LEP and at lower energy…
Vacuum polarization integrals involve the vector spectral functions which can be experimentally determined from two sources: (i) e+e- annihilation cross sections and (ii) hadronic tau decays. Recently results with comparable precision have…
Using only independent high-scale OPE input, we investigate QCD sum rule constraints on two currently incompatible versions of the I=1 vector spectral function, one obtained from electroproduction data, the other from hadronic tau decay…
A number of recent determinations of $m_s$ using hadronic $\tau$ decay data involve inclusive analyses based on the so-called $(k,0)$ spectral weights. We show here that the OPE representations of the longitudinal contributions appearing in…