R. Barate et al., MEASUREMENT OF THE AXIAL-VECTOR-TAU SPECTRAL FUNCTIONS AND DETERMINATION OF ALPHA(S)(M-TAU(2)) FROM HADRONIC TAU-DECAYS, EUROPEAN PHYSICAL JOURNAL C-PARTICLES AND FIELDS, 4(3), 1998, pp. 409-431
An analysis based on 124000 selected tau pairs recorded by the ALEPH d
etector at LEP provides the vector (V) and axial-vector (A) spectral f
unctions of hadronic tau decays together with their total widths. This
allows the evaluation of finite energy chiral sum rules that are weig
hted integrals over the (V - A) spectral functions. In addition, a pre
cise measurement of alpha(s) along with a determination of nonperturba
tive contributions at the tau mass scale is performed. The experimenta
lly and theoretically most robust determination of alpha(s)(M-tau(2))
is obtained from the (V + A) fit that yields alpha(s)(M-tau(2)) = 0.33
4 +/- 0.022 giving alpha(s)(M-Z(2)) = 0.1202 +/- 0.0027 after the extr
apolation to the mass of the Z boson. The approach of the Operator Pro
duct Expansion (OPE) is tested experimentally studying the evolution o
f the tau hadronic widths to masses smaller than the tau mass.