Average gluon and quark jet multiplicities

Abstract

We show the results in [1,2] for computing the QCD contributions to the scale evolution of average gluon and quark jet multiplicities. The new results came due a recent progress in timelike small-x resummation obtained in the MSbar factorization scheme. They depend on two nonperturbative parameters with clear and simple physical interpretations. A global fit of these two quantities to all available experimental data sets demonstrates by its goodness how our results solve a longstandig problem of QCD. Including all the available theoretical input within our approach, alphas(Mz)=0.1199 +- 0.0026 has been obtained in the MSbar scheme in an approximation equivalent to next-to-next-to-leading order enhanced by the resummations of ln x terms through the NNLL level and of ln Q2 terms by the renormalization group. This result is in excellent agreement with the present world average.