Multiparticle production in electron-positron annihilation

TL;DR

This paper reviews the modeling of multiparticle production in electron-positron annihilation, emphasizing the gluon dominance model that combines QCD-based quark-gluon cascades with phenomenological hadronization, to match experimental data.

Contribution

It revisits the multiparticle production process in electron-positron annihilation, proposing a gluon dominance model that integrates QCD cascades with hadronization based on experimental data.

Findings

The gluon dominance model effectively describes multiplicity distributions in e+e- annihilation.

QCD-based cascade modeling combined with phenomenological hadronization matches experimental results.

Reanalysis of e+e- annihilation data provides insights into strong interaction mechanisms.

Abstract

Multiparticle production in hadron and lepton interactions still attracts our attention. Simulation by using Monte Carlo event generators is performed before planning any experiment. But it often overestimates (or underestimates) experimental data. These generators are based on the theory of strong interactions, quantum chromodynamics (QCD), which is capable of performing calculations only in the perturbation theory. Soft processes that make up a significant contribution in high-energy interactions are forced to involve phenomenological models. Of all multiparticle production processes, electron-positron annihilation is the theoretically cleanest, proceeding via an intermediate virtual photon or $Z^0$-boson followed by quark-antiquark pair creation. QCD describes well the development of quark-gluon ($qg$) cascade as marcovian branching process, that is called first stage. The transformation of quarks and gluons produced in the $qg$-cascade into observable hadrons occurs in the second stage, hadronization, to which perturbation theory is no longer applicable. The choice of a scheme for it is based on experimental data. Convolution of $qg$-cascade and hadronization allowed us to describe the multiplicity in practice all processes of multiple production in both lepton and hadron high-energy collisions. This model is called the gluon dominance model. Several decades have passed since a series of $e^+e^-$ annihilation experiments were carried out. Now, the main interests of high energy physicists are focused on the study of multiparticle production in proton and heavy ion collisions. Their research revealed many new results in the theory of strong interactions, including the hadronization. That is why it appeared necessary to analyze multiplicity n $e^+e^-$-annihilation again.