TESTS OF PERTURBATIVE QCD USING R, GAMMA-H(Z) AND EVENT TOPOLOGY MEASUREMENTS IN HADRONIC Z-DECAYS

The world data on R and LAMBDA(h)Z is used to derive a value of the QCD scale parameter, free of hadronization and renormalization scale uncertainties, of GAMMA(5)/MS = 600(-240)+350 MeV. This value is then used to investigate the convergence of the QCD perturbation expansions for several different jet topology measures, with the choice mu = square-root s of the renormalization scale. In most cases satisfactory convergence is observed. The overall consistency of all measurements of LAMBDA/MS is also discussed. Although LAMBDA(5)/MS seems high, present data is consistent (17% C.L.) with a global world average value of LAMBDA(5)/MS = 250(-60)+80 MeV, alpha(s)(2) (M(Z)) = 0.120 +/- 0.005.