Hadronic returns to the Z in electron-positron annihilation at high energy

Abstract

The production of four hadronic jets in e+e- collisions above the Z pole is dominated by the QCD e+e- --> qqqq,qqgg processes and, for sufficiently high energy, the electroweak e+e- --> W+W- --> qqqq process. However there is another mechanism for producing four jets, e+e- --> Z gg --> qqgg, which can be regarded as a `hadronic return' to the Z pole. We investigate this new process in detail

25 pages, latex, uses epsfig, 10 figures