Application of the principle of minimal sensitivity to higher-order processes in quantum chromodynamics

Abstract

We present the renormalization approach based on Stevenson's principle of minimal sensitivity (PMS) in a graphical form from which the PMS result can be read off for any next-to-leading-order calculation as input. Applications of this approach are made to several processes not previously investigated and a comparison between the PMS approach and other renormalization schemes is made. The PMS approach, when compared to data, yields a strong-interaction scale parameter ${\ensuremath{\Lambda}}_{\stackrel{-}{\mathrm{MS}}}$ which is significantly smaller than the one obtained using the modified minimal-subtraction scheme for the processes considered. For these processes, however, the PMS approach is practically identical to the one based on the requirement of fastest apparent convergence.