On the universality of the leading, 1Q power corrections in QCD

We discuss 1Q corrections to hard processes in QCD where Q is a large mass parameter like the total energy in e+e− annihilation. The main problem we address ourselves to is whether these corrections to different processes (concentrating for definiteness on the certain event shape variables and the Drell-Yan cross section) can be related to each other in a reliable way so that the phenomenology of the 1Q corrections can be developed. We derive first the relation valid to lowest order using both the renormalon and finite-gauge-boson mass techniques to check its independence on the infrared cut-off procedure. We then argue that the 1Q corrections are due to soft gluons which factorize into a universal factor such that the lowest order relations are preserved in higher orders.