Event shapes in $e^+e^-$ annhilation at NNLO

Abstract

We report first results on the calculation of NNLO corrections to event shape distributions in electron-positron annhilation. The corrections are sizeable for all variables, however their magnitude is substantially different for different observables. We observe that inclusion of the NNLO corrections yields a considerably better agreement between theory and experimental data both in shape and normalisation of the event shape distributions.