A next-to-leading order study of pion-pair production and comparison with E706 data

We discuss the production of pion pairs with a large invariant mass in hadronic collisions. We present a study based on a perturbative QCD calculation at full next-to-leading order accuracy, implemented in the computer programme DIPHOX. We provide a comparison of various predictions with the corresponding observables measured by the E706 fixed target experiment. Discrepancies between data and next-to-leading order calculation are carefully analysed. We classify the theoretical next-to-leading order distributions with respect to their infrared sensitivity, and explain which distributions need improvements. Further, we comment on the energy scale dependences of non pertubative effects. Received: 8 November 2001 / Published online: 5 April 2002