Particle spectra from dark matter annihilation: physics modeling and QCD uncertainties
Simone Amoroso, Sascha Caron, Adil Jueid, Roberto Ruiz de Austri, Peter Skands
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14 pages, 5 figures, Contribution for the talk presented in Tools for High Energy Physics and Cosmology workshop (TOOLS2020), 2-6 November 2020, IP2I Lyon, France. Based on arXiv:1812.07424. Relevant data can be found on Zenodo (http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3764809)
In this talk, we discuss the physics modelling of particle spectra arising from dark matter (DM) annihilation or decay. In the context of the indirect searches of DM, the final state products will, in general, undergo a set of complicated processes such as resonance decays, QED/QCD radiation, hadronisation and hadron decays. This set of processes lead to stable particles (photons, positrons, anti-protons, and neutrinos among others) which travel for very long distances before reaching the detectors. The modelling of their spectra contains some uncertainties which are often neglected in the relevant analyses. We discuss the sources of these uncertainties and estimate their impact on photon energy spectra for benchmark DM scenarios with $m_χ\in [10, 1000]\,$GeV. Instructions for how to retrieve complete tables from Zenodo are also provided.
We calculate the full one-loop SUSY-QCD corrections to stop annihilation into gluons and light quarks including the Sommerfeld enhancement effect and discuss their impact on the neutralino relic density in the MSSM.
We provide a brief summary of recent developments in QCD calculations in and beyond fixed-order perturbation theory, for observables in $e^{+}e^{-}$ annihilation as well as hadron collisions.
We present full QCD and SUSY-QCD corrections to neutralino pair annihilation into quark-antiquark pairs. We show results and numerically evaluate their impact on the neutralino annihilation cross section and the relic density in scenarios with non-universal gaugino masses. By comparing to the relic density obtained from a pure leading order calculation, we demonstrate that the corrections strongly influence the extraction of SUSY mass parameters from cosmological data.
We present a complete calculation of the QCD and SUSY-QCD corrections to neutralino pair annihilation into bottom quark-antiquark pairs through exchange of a pseudoscalar Higgs boson, which is the dominant process in the cosmological A-funnel region of the mSUGRA model. We present numerical predictions for the annihilation cross section and discuss the influence of the correction terms on the cold dark matter relic density with respect to recent cosmological data.
The precision of measurements of the strong coupling constant using event-shape variables in e+e- annihilations is limited by theoretical systematic uncertainties. The uncertainties are related to missing higher orders in the perturbative predictions for the event-shape distributions. A new method is presented for the assessment of theoretical uncertainties in alpha_s. This method evaluates the systematic uncertainty of the parameter alpha_s from the uncertainty of the prediction for the distributions from which it is extracted. The perturbative uncertainties are calculated on a purely theoret…
We calculate QCD correction to the neutralino annihilation cross section into quark anti-quark final state and discuss its implications to the calculation of neutralino relic density. We see that the QCD correction enhances the pair-annihilation cross section by O(10 %) when final-state quarks are non-relativistic. Consequently, when the lightest neutralinos dominantly annihilate into a t\bar{t} pair, the relic density of the lightest neutralino is significantly affected by the QCD correction, in particular when the lightest-neutralino mass is close to the top-quark mass.
The annihilation type diagrams are difficult to calculate in any kind of models or method. Encouraged by the the successful calculation of pure annihilation type B decays in the perturbative QCD factorization approach, we calculate the pure annihilation type $D\to PP(V)$ decays in the perturbative QCD approach based on the $k_T$ factorization. Although the expansion parameter $1/m_D$ is not very small, our leading order numerical results agree with the existing experiment data for most channels. We expect the more accurate observation from experiments, which can help us learn about the dynamic…
We report on two recent calculations of QCD corrections to neutralino annihilation cross sections: (1) the next-to-leading order corrections to chi chi -> g g, and (2) the contribution to the cross section for chi chi -> q qbar g arising from interference between the tree-level and loop-induced processes.
We present a new implementation of the NNLO QCD corrections to three-jet final states and related event-shape observables in electron--positron annihilation. Our implementation is based on the antenna subtraction method, and is performed in the NNLOJET framework. The calculation improves upon earlier results by taking into account the full kinematical information on the initial state momenta, thereby allowing the event orientation to be computed to NNLO accuracy. We find the event-orientation distributions at LEP and SLC to be very robust under higher order QCD corrections.
We report on our computation of the mixed QCD and weak corrections to $q {\bar q} \to t\bar{t}$ including $t, \bar t$ spin effects, in particular on single top spin asymmetries.
The calculation of the cosmological relic density of the dark matter candidate within supersymmetric models is an interesting possibility to obtain additional constraints on the supersymmetric parameter space with respect to collider, electroweak precision, and low-energy data. Considering future cosmological precision measurements, radiative corrections can play an important role in the analysis. We present full QCD and SUSY-QCD corrections to neutralino pair annihilation into quark-antiquark pairs and analyze their impact on the neutralino annihilation cross section and the relic density. By…
We use classical or large Nc QCD to describe the mesons (pion, rho, omega) coming from proton-antiproton annihilation at rest as classical fields, which we then quantize as coherent states. This treatment gives a nearly parameter free account of the pion branching ratios in annihilation.
We consider the Adler $D$-function, which is defined in the spacelike region, and the $e^+e^-$ annihilation ratio smeared, according to the Poggio, Quinn, and Weinberg method, which is determined for timelike argument. We show that the method of the nonperturbative $a$-expansion allows one to describe these Euclidean and Minkowskian characteristics of the process of $e^+e^-$ annihilation down to the lowest energy scales.
We describe in detail our calculation of the full supersymmetric (SUSY) QCD corrections to neutralino annihilation into heavy quarks and extend our numerical analysis of the resulting dark matter relic density to scenarios without scalar or gaugino mass unification. In these scenarios, the final state is often composed of top quarks and the annihilation proceeds through Z^0-boson or scalar top-quark exchanges. The impact of the corrections is again shown to be sizable, so that they must be taken into account systematically in global analyses of the supersymmetry parameter space.
We compute the full O(alpha_s) supersymmetric (SUSY) QCD corrections for neutralino annihilation into massive quarks through gauge or Higgs bosons and squarks in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM), including the known resummation of logarithmically enhanced terms. The numerical impact of the corrections on the extraction of SUSY mass parameters from cosmological data is analyzed for gravity-mediated SUSY breaking scenarios and shown to be sizable, so that these corrections must be included in common analysis tools.
Motivated by various excesses observed by the Fermi-LAT and AMS collaborations, we perform a detailed analysis of QCD uncertainties on particle spectra from dark-matter annihilation (or decay) into jets. When annihilated to SM particles, the final-state annihilation products undergo various complicated processes such as QED and QCD bremsstrahlung, hadronisation, and hadron decays. These processes contain some intrinsic uncertainties which are usually difficult to model and which are neglected in physical analyses. First, we perform several re-tunings of the fragmentation function parameters. T…
The CDF 3.7 sigma evidence of pure annihilation $B_s \to π^+ π^-$ decays, if confirmed, would imply a large annihilation scenario in the QCD factorization approach. This is somewhat unexpected as the large annihilation scenario was disfavored in previous studies. In this paper we reinvestigate the role of annihilation topology in QCD factorization. We find that it is not easy to reach the CDF central value of $B_s \to π^+ π^-$ decays when other decay channels are considered. Our analysis also reveals that, for well-measured charmless B decays into two final pseudoscalar mesons, the QCD factori…
In Perturbative QCD (PQCD) approach we study the direct $CP$ violation in the pure annihilation decay process of $\bar{B}^0_{s}\rightarrowπ^+π^-π^+π^-$ induced by the $ρ$ and $ω$ double resonance effect. Generally, the $CP$ violation is small in the pure annihilation type decay process. However, we find that the $CP$ violation can be enhanced by double $ρ-ω$ interference when the invariant masses of the $π^+π^-$ pairs are in the vicinity of the $ω$ resonance. For the decay process of $\bar{B}^0_{s}\rightarrowπ^+π^-π^+π^-$, the maximum $CP$ violation can reach 28.64{\%}.
We study the decays into six quarks of off-shell pairs of W bosons produced in electron-positron annihilations, through the O(as^2) order in the strong coupling constant. We give explicit helicity amplitude formulae. We present numerical results in the context of phenomenological analyses of relevance at LEP2 and future Linear Colliders: such as MW determinations, New Physics and Higgs searches.
Using the method of QCD light-cone sum rules, we calculate the $B \to ππ$ hadronic matrix elements with annihilation topology. We obtain a finite result, including the related strong phase. Numerically, the annihilation effects in $B\to ππ$ turn out to be small with respect to the factorizable emission mechanism. Our predictions, together with the earlier sum rule estimates of emission and penguin contributions, are used for the phenomenological analysis of $B\to ππ$ channels. We predict a $ΔI=1/2$ transition amplitude which significantly differs from this amplitude extracted from the current …
We present the first genuine QCD five-loop calculation of the vacuum polarization functions: analytical terms of order alpha_s^4 n_f^2 to the absorptive parts of vector and scalar correlators. These corrections form an important gauge-invariant subset of the full O(alpha_s^4) correction to $e^+ e^- annihilation into hadrons and the Higgs decay rate into hadrons respectively. They discriminate between different widely used estimates of the full result.
We calculate the QCD radiative corrections to the production of supersymmetric scalar partners of quarks in e+e- annihilation. We include both the standard gluonic corrections and the genuine supersymmetric QCD corrections due to quark--gluino loops, and allow for mixing between left-- and right--handed scalar quarks which leads to the possibility that the two final state particles have different masses. The corrections are found to be much larger than the ones affecting the production of spin 1/2 particles.
We present threshold enhanced QCD corrections to the bottom quark energy distribution in Higgs boson decay and to hadroproduction in $l^+l^-$ annihilation beyond leading order in the strong coupling constant. This is achieved using the resummed decay distribution obtained using renormalisation group invariance and the mass factorisation theorem that they satisfy and Sudakov resummation of soft gluons.
The revised version contains two additional references i.e. [13], [14] w.r.t. to the original paper. Furthermore Eq. (33) in [11] at the end of the paragraph below (3.17) must be Eq. (33) in [10]. Misprints in the list of references are corrected.
In this talk, we discuss the physics modeling of antiproton spectra arising from dark matter (DM) annihilation or decay in a model-independent manner. The modeling of antiproton spectra contains some intrinsic uncertainties related to QCD parton showers and hadronisation of baryons. We briefly assess the sources of these uncertainties and their impact on antiproton energy spectra for a few selected DM scenarios. The results are provided in tabulated form for future analyses.
We present the third-order QCD prediction for the production of top-anti-top quark pairs in electron-positron collisions close to the threshold in the dominant S-wave state. We observe a significant reduction of the theoretical uncertainty and discuss the sensitivity to the top quark mass and width.
Dwarf spheroidal galaxies compose one of the most dark matter dominated classes of objects, making them a set of targets to search for signals of dark matter annihilation. Recent developments in gamma-ray astronomy, most importantly the launch of the Fermi-LAT instrument, have brought those targets into attention. Yet, no clear excess of gamma-rays has been confirmed from these targets, resulting in some of the tightest limits on dark matter annihilation from indirect searches. In extracting limits from dwarf spheroidal galaxies, it is of great importance, to properly take into account all rel…
We investigate stau-antistau annihilation into heavy quarks in the phenomenological Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model within the DM@NLO project. We present the calculation of the corresponding cross section including corrections up to $\mathcal{O}(α_s)$ and QED Sommerfeld enhancement. The numerical impact of these corrections is discussed for the cross section and the dark matter relic density, where we focus on top-quark final states and consider either neutralino or gravitino dark matter. Similarly to previous work, we find that the presented corrections should be included when calculati…
We present the full $\mathcal{O}(α_s)$ supersymmetric QCD corrections for stop-anti-stop annihilation into electroweak final states within the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). We also incorporate Coulomb corrections due to gluon exchange between the incoming stops. Numerical results for the annihilation cross sections and the predicted neutralino relic density are presented. We show that the impact of the radiative corrections on the cosmologically preferred region of the parameter space can become larger than the current experimental uncertainty, shifting the relic bands within t…
We have calculated the full O(alpha_s) supersymmetric QCD corrections to neutralino-stop co-annihilation into electroweak vector and Higgs bosons within the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). We performed a parameter study within the phenomenological MSSM and demonstrated that the studied co-annihilation processes are phenomenologically relevant, especially in the context of a 126 GeV Higgs-like particle. By means of an example scenario we discuss the effect of the full next-to-leading order corrections on the co-annihilation cross section and show their impact on the predicted neut…
We study the scaling regime of hadron-(anti)-hadron annihilation into a deeply virtual photon and a real photon, H anti-H -> gamma^* gamma, and deep backward virtual Compton scattering, gamma^* H -> H gamma. We advocate that there is a kinematical region where the scattering amplitude factorizes into a short-distance matrix element and a long-distance dominated object: a transition distribution amplitude which describes the hadron to photon transition.
We present theoretical analysis of paired $B_c$ mesons production in $e^+e^-$ annihilation at different energy scales taking into account full next-to-leading order QCD corrections. Both possible electroweak channels are considered: production via virtual photon and via virtual $Z$-boson. We study in detail the role of radiative QCD corrections, which were found to be significant especially at low energies. It is shown that the contribution from $Z$-boson is significant at high energies ($\sqrt{s} > M_Z/2$) especially in the case of paired production of pseudo-scalar and vector ($B_c + B_c^*$)…
Precision studies of QCD at electron-positron colliders are based on measurements of event shapes and jet rates. To match the high experimental accuracy, theoretical predictions to next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) in QCD are needed for a reliable interpretation of the data. We report the first calculation of NNLO corrections O(alpha_s^3) to three-jet production and related event shapes, and discuss their phenomenological impact.
We present the analytic calculation of the Master Integrals for the two-loop, non-planar topologies that enter the calculation of the amplitude for top-quark pair hadroproduction in the quark-annihilation channel. Using the method of differential equations, we expand the integrals in powers of the dimensional regulator $ε$ and determine the expansion coefficients in terms of generalized harmonic polylogarithms of two dimensionless variables through to weight four.
QCD corrections to all the allowed decays of superheavy groundstate quarkonia into electroweak gauge and Higgs bosons are presented. For quick estimates, approximations that reproduce the exact results within less than at worst two percent are also given.
Indirect detection signals from dark matter annihilation are studied in the positron channel. We discuss in detail the positron propagation inside the galactic medium: we present novel solutions of the diffusion and propagation equations and we focus on the determination of the astrophysical uncertainties which affect the positron dark matter signal. We show that, especially in the low energy tail of the positron spectra at Earth, the uncertainty is sizeable and we quantify the effect. Comparison of our predictions with current available and foreseen experimental data are derived.
We compute production rates for two, three, four and five jets in electron-positron annihilation at the third order in the QCD coupling constant. At this order, three-jet production is described to next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) in perturbation theory while the two-jet rate is obtained at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (N$^3$LO). Our results yield an improved perturbative description of the dependence of jet multiplicity on the jet resolution parameter, $\ycut$, particularly at small values of $\ycut$.
We begin with short review of the analytic approach (AA) to QCD recently developed and applied to the process of $e^+e^-$ annihilation into hadrons at low energies. Besides summary of the theoretical description of smeared experimental data for the $R$ cross-section ratio we give fresh analogous result for the corresponding Adler function, $D(Q^2)$, and demonstrate excellent agreement between the AA theoretical results and data in the low $Q^2$ region.
The associated production of a $J/ψ$ and a $π$-meson in antiproton-nucleon annihilation is studied in the framework of QCD collinear factorization. In this approach, a hard subprocess responsible for the production of the heavy quark-antiquark pair factorizes from soft hadronic matrix elements, such as the antiproton (nucleon) distribution amplitude and the nucleon-to-pion (antiproton-to-pion) transition distribution amplitude. This reaction mechanism should dominate the forward and backward kinematical regions, where the cross sections are expected to be measurable in the set-up of the PANDA …
The next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD corrections are calculated for the pair-annihilation of spin-1 dark matter (DM) by dimensionally regularizing both ultraviolet and infrared singularities in non-relativistic limit (v<<1). The complete O(alphas) correction is about 8% due to the massless gluon contribution. An extra 5% will be added if there is a new interaction from a massive gluon of approximately same mass as the DM particle. The NLO QCD correction could give the sizable shift to the DM mass constrained by relic density measurements.
The process pp -> top anti-top bottom anti-bottom + X represents a very important background reaction to searches at the LHC, in particular to top anti-top H production where the Higgs boson decays into a bottom anti-bottom pair. A successful analysis of top anti-top H at the LHC requires the knowledge of direct top anti-top bottom anti-bottom production at NLO in QCD. We take the first step in this direction upon calculating the NLO QCD corrections to the subprocess initiated by quark anti-quark annihilation.
We analyze the exclusive charmonium $J/ψ+η_c$ pair production in $e^+e^-$ annihilation using the nonfactorized perturbative QCD and the light-front quark model(LFQM) that goes beyond the peaking approximation. We effectively include all orders of higher twist terms in the leading order of QCD coupling constant and compare our nonfactorized analysis with the usual factorized analysis in the calculation of the cross section. We also calculate the quark distribution amplitudes, the Gegenbauer moments, and the decay constants for $J/ψ$ and $η_c$ mesons using our LFQM. Our nonfactorized result enha…
Indirect detection signals from dark matter annihilation are studied in the positron channel. We discuss in detail the positron propagation inside the galactic medium: we present novel solutions of the diffusion and propagation equations and we focus on the determination of the astrophysical uncertainties which affect the positron dark matter signal. We find dark matter scenarios and propagation models that nicely fit existing data on the positron fraction. Finally, we present predictions both on the positron fraction and on the flux for already running or planned space experiments, concluding…
We report on the analytic calculation of the second-order QCD corrections to semi-inclusive hadron production in electron-positron annihilation. The calculation of the single-particle inclusive cross-section in time-like kinematics is performed in Mellin N-space and uses an algorithmic evaluation of inclusive phase-space integrals, based on the unitarity cutting rules and integration-by-parts. We obtain splitting functions and coefficient functions up to second order in the strong coupling alpha_s. Our results are in agreement with earlier calculations in the literature by Rijken and van Neerv…
We analyzed the process of $B_s\rightarrow ρρ$ decay in QCD factorization (QCDF) and final state interaction (FSI) effects. In QCDF for this decay we have only the annihilation graph and we expected small Branching ratio. Then we considered FSI effect as a sizable correction where the intermediate states are $π^0π^0$, $π^+π^-$, $K^0\bar{K^0}$ and $K^+K^-$ mesons. To consider the amplitudes of these intermediate states, QCDF approach was used. The experimental branching ratio of $B_s\rightarrow ρρ$ is less than $3.20\times 10^{-4}$ and our result is $1.08 \times 10^{-9}$ and $3.29 \times10^{-4}…
We report on a calculation of the vector current contributions to the electroweak production of top quark pairs in $e^+e^-$ annihilation at next-to-next-to-leading order in Quantum Chromodynamics. Our setup is fully differential and can be used to calculate any infrared-safe observable. The real emission contributions are handled by a next-to-next-to-leading order generalization of the phase-space slicing method. We demonstrate the power of our technique by considering its application to various inclusive and exclusive observables.
We present threshold enhanced N$^3$LO QCD corrections to inclusive Higgs production through bottom anti-bottom annihilation at hadron colliders using threshold resummed cross section. The resummed cross section is obtained using factorization properties and Sudakov resummation of the inclusive cross section. We use the recent results on threshold N$^3$LO corrections in QCD for Drell-Yan production and three loop QCD corrections to Higgs form factor with bottom anti-bottom quark to achieve this task. This is the first step towards the evaluation of complete N$^3$LO result. We have numerically d…
We compute the full O(alpha_s) SUSY-QCD corrections to dark matter annihilation in the Higgs-funnel, resumming potentially large mu tan beta and A_b contributions and keeping all finite O(m_b,s,1/tan^2 beta) terms. We demonstrate numerically that these corrections strongly influence the extraction of SUSY mass parameters from cosmological data and must therefore be included in common analysis tools such as DarkSUSY or micrOMEGAs.
Next-to-Leading-Order(NLO) QCD corrections to double J/psi production in e^+e^- annihilation at sqrt{s}=10.6 GeV are calculated. We find that they greatly decrease the cross section, with a K factor (NLO/LO) ranging from -0.31 to 0.25 depending on the renormalization scale. Although the renormalization scale dependence indicates a large uncertainty, when combined with the NLO QCD corrections to J/psi + eta_c production, it can explain why the double J/psi$ production could not be found at B factories while the J/psi + eta_c production could, despite the fact that cross section of the former is…
We present the rapidity distribution of the Higgs boson produced through bottom quark annihilation at third order in QCD using the threshold approximation. We provide a framework, based on the factorization properties of the QCD amplitudes along with Sudakov resummation and the renormalization group invariance, that allows one to perform the computation of the threshold corrections in a consistent, systematic and accurate way. The recent results on threshold N$^3$LO correction in QCD for the Drell-Yan production and on three loop QCD correction to Higgs form factor with bottom anti-bottom quar…
We calculate the Compton and annihilation production of a soft static lepton pair in a quark-gluon plasma in the two-loop approximation. We work in the context of the effective perturbative expansion based on the resummation of hard thermal loops. Double counting is avoided by subtracting appropriate counterterms. It is found that the two-loop diagrams give contributions of the same order as the one-loop diagram. Furthermore, these contributions are necessary to obtain agreement with the naive perturbative expansion in the limit of vanishing thermal masses.
Next-to-Leading-Order(NLO) QCD corrections to J/jpsi plus eta_c production in e+e- annihilation at sqrt{s}=10.6 GeV is calculated in this paper, and an analytic result is obtained. By choosing proper physical parameters, a K factor (ratio of NLO to LO) of about 2, which is in agreement with the result in Ref.\cite{Zhang:2005ch}, is obtained. Our results show that the Next-Next-to-Leading-Order(NNLO) corrections might be quite large. The plot of the K-factor vs the center-of-mass energy sqrt{s} shows that it is more difficult to obtain a convergent result from the perturbative QCD without resum…
We calculate the supersymmetric QCD corrections in order $α_s$ to the cross section $e^+ e^- \to \sq_i \bar\sq_j$ $(i,j = 1, 2)$ within the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. We pay particular attention to the case of the left--right squark mixing and to the renormalization of the mixing angle. The corrections due to gluino exchange turn out to be smaller than those due to gluon exchange, but they can be significant at higher energies even for a gluino mass of a few hundred GeV.
We present the first determination of the strong coupling constant from the three-jet rate in e+e- annihilation at LEP, based on a next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) perturbative QCD prediction. More precisely, we extract alpha_s by fitting perturbative QCD predictions at O(alpha_s^3) to data from the ALEPH experiment at LEP. Over a large range of the jet-resolution parameter ycut this observable is characterised by small non-perturbative corrections and an excellent stability under renormalisation scale variation. For the three-jet rate at ln(ycut) = -3.9 we find alpha_s(MZ) = 0.1175 +/- 0.…
We calculate supersymmetric QCD corrections (squark/gluino loops) to quark pair production in e+ e- annihilation, allowing for mixing between left- and right-handed squarks and taking into account the effects of nonzero quark masses. Corrections to the Z boson partial widths are generally small and positive, except in the case of large b-squark mixing, where they become negative. At high-energy e+ e- colliders, larger corrections to the total cross sections are possible. Corrections to forward-backward asymmetries are negligible except possibly for top quarks, where they are sensitive to t-squ…
Hadronic annihilation rate of $1^{+-}$ heavy quarkonium is given to next-to-leading order in $α_s$ and leading order in $v^2$ using a recently developed factorization formalism which is based on NRQCD. The result includes both the annihilation of P-wave color-singlet $Q\bar{Q}$ component, and the annihilation of S-wave color-octet $Q\bar{Q}$ component of the quarkonium. The notorious infrared divergences due to soft gluons, i.e., the Logarithms associated with the binding energy, encountered in previous perturbative calculations of $1^{+-}$ quarkonium decays are found to be explicitly cancelle…
A complete numerical solution of the evolution equation for parton multiplicities in quark and gluon jets with initial conditions at threshold is presented. Data on both hadron and jet multiplicities in e+e- annihilation are well described with a common normalization, giving further support to the picture of Local Parton Hadron Duality. Predictions for LEP-II energies are presented. Furthermore we study the sensitivity to the cutoff parameter Q_0 and the scale of alpha_s.
Theory results on precision measurements in electron-positron annihilation at low and high energies are collected. These cover pure QCD calculations as well as mixed electroweak and QCD results, involving light and heavy quarks. The impact of QCD corrections on the $W$-boson mass is discussed and, last not least, the status and the perspectives for the Higgs boson decay rate into $b\bar b$, $c\bar c$ and into two gluons.
