QCD PREDICTIONS FOR ANNIHILATION DECAYS OF P-WAVE QUARKONIA TO NEXT-TO-LEADING ORDER IN ALPHA(S)

The decay rates of P-wave heavy quarkonia to light hadrons are present ed to leading order in upsilon(2) and next-to-leading order in alpha(s ). They include contributions from both the color-singlet component an d the color-octet component of quarkonia. Applying these results to ch armonium and using measuring decay rates for the chi(c1) and chi(c2) b y E760, we determine the two nonperturbative decay matrix elements, an d then predict the hadronic decay rates of chi(c0) and h(c), and the e lectromagnetic decay rates of chi(c0) and chi(c2). The obtained decay rates of chi(c0) --> LH and chi(c0) --> gamma gamma are in agreement w ith the Crystal ball results, and also with the new measurements by BE S. However, the results for Gamma(chi(c0) --> LH) are dependent on the choice of renormalization scale.