Rigorous QCD Analysis of Inclusive Annihilation and Production of Heavy Quarkonium

Abstract

A rigorous QCD analysis of the inclusive annihilation decay rates of heavy quarkonium states is presented. The effective-field-theory framework of nonrelativistic QCD is used to separate the short-distance scale of annihilation, which is set by the heavy quark mass $M$, from the longer-distance scales associated with quarkonium structure. The annihilation decay rates are expressed in terms of nonperturbative matrix elements of 4-fermion operators in nonrelativistic QCD, with coefficients that can be computed using perturbation theory in the coupling constant $\alpha_s(M)$. The matrix elements are organized into a hierarchy according to their scaling with $v$, the typical velocity of the heavy quark. An analogous factorization formalism is developed for the production cross sections of heavy quarkonium in processes involving momentum transfers of order $M$ or larger. The factorization formulas are applied to the annihilation decay rates and production cross sections of S-wave states, up to corrections of relative order $v^3$, and of P-wave states, up to corrections of relative order $v^2$.