Multiparticle production and quantum chromodynamics

The theory of strong interactions, quantum chromodynamics (QCD), is quite successful in predicting and describing many features of multiparticle production processes at high energies. In this paper, the general perturbative QCD approach to these processes (primarily e⁺e^–-annihilation) is briefly formulated, and associated problems are discussed. It is shown that analytical calculations at the parton level using a low-momentum cutoff are surprisingly adequate in describing experimental data on the final hadronic state in multiparticle production processes at high energies — even though the perturbative expansion parameter is not very small. More importantly, the perturbative QCD not only describes existing data but also predicts many qualitatively new and intriguing phenomena.