Introduction to Perturbative QCD

Abstract

This is a written version of two lectures given at the First School on Field Theory and Gravitation in Vitoria (Brasil) April 15-19, 1997. We discuss the foundation of QCD as the theory of strong interactions and the perturbative analysis of e^+e^- annihilation into hadrons. Typical concepts of perturbative QCD studies, such as collinear singularities, jets, Sudakov form factors, are explained working out this case.

Comments: LaTeX, 53 pages, figures requested on hard copy