PROCESSES INVOLVING FRAGMENTATION FUNCTIONS BEYOND THE LEADING ORDER IN QCD

We consider semi-inclusive reactions involving one or two observed hadrons in the final state within the framework of perturbative QCD. We first define parton densities and fragmentation functions beyond the leading order in QCD in a physically motivated way. Unambiguous predictions are made for one-hadron inclusive deep inelastic scattering and two-hadron inclusive deep inelastic e+e- annihilation. The correction terms are found to be small in all regions except the kinematic boundaries. Relations analogous to those first investigated by Gribov and Lipatov and Drell, Levy and Yan are found to hold beyond the leading order. © 1979.