The Dipole Formalism for the Calculation of QCD Jet Cross Sections at Next-to-Leading Order

Abstract

In order to make quantitative predictions for jet cross sections in perturbative QCD, it is essential to calculate them to next-to-leading accuracy. This has traditionally been an extremely laborious process. Using a new formalism, imaginatively called the dipole formalism, we are able to construct a completely general algorithm for next-to-leading order calculations of arbitrary jet quantities in arbitrary processes. In this paper we present the basic ideas behind the algorithm and illustrate them with a simple example.

17 pages, 2 figures. A postscript version of this paper can be obtained from http://surya11.cern.ch/users/seymour/pubs/nlolett.ps.Z . Reposted version corrects several misprints