APPLICATION OF PADE APPROXIMANTS TO DETERMINATION OF ALPHA(S)(M(Z)(2)) FROM HADRONIC EVENT SHAPE OBSERVABLES IN E(-) ANNIHILATION()E()

We have applied Pade approximants to perturbative QCD calculations of event shape observables in e(+)e(-) --> hadrons. We used the exact O(a lpha(s)(2)) prediction and the [0/1] Pade approximant to estimate the O(alpha(s)(3)) term for 15 observables, and in each case determined al pha(s)(M(Z)(2)) from comparison with hadronic Z(0) decay data from the SLD experiment. We found the scatter among the alpha(s)(M(Z)(2)) valu es to be significantly reduced compared with the standard O(alpha(s)(2 )) determination, implying that the Pade method provides at least a pa rtial approximation of higher-order perturbative contributions to even t shape observables.