NLO PRODUCTION AND DECAY OF QUARKONIUM

We present a calculation of next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD correction s to total hadronic production cross sections and to light-hadron-deca y rates of heavy quarkonium states. Both colour-singlet and colour-oct et contributions are included. We discuss in detail the use of covaria nt projectors in dimensional regularization, the structure of soft-glu on emission and the overall finiteness of radiative corrections. We co mpare our approach with the NLO version of the threshold expansion tec hnique recently introduced by Braaten and Chen. Most of the results pr esented here are new. Others represent the first independent reevaluat ion of calculations already known in the literature. In this case a co mparison with previous findings is reported. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.