[en] A summary is presented of the highlights of the 27. Rencontre de Moriond Meeting on the subject of QCD and High-Energy Interactions held from 22-28 March, 1992. The material covered includes jets and direct photons, structure functions, beauty physics, top mass limits, determinations of α_s, and heavy ion collisions. (K.A.)

[en] Perturbative QCD non-linear evolution equations are used to analyse the long time regime of the gluon cascade. Their exact solution at the collinear leading log approximation reveals that the gluon density is intermittent. Moreover gluons undergo a transition entailing that they form the clusters of a preconfined phase. (author) 11 refs.; 1 fig

[en] The use of fractal techniques to quantify the texture of irregular distributions of points, such as occur in rapidity histograms is reviewed. Even when scaling (simple or multiple) does not occur, it is possible to formulate the correlation and moment analysis for various resolutions in a form that is useful. For example, the bin averaged factorial moment approach is close to the recently introduced strip moments. The latter are almost the same as the correlation dimensions commonly used in nonlinear dynamics. The strip moments have the advantage of removing fluctuations for high resolution due to the arbitrary placement of bin walls, particularly for spike events and high-order moments. (author) 16 refs.; 3 figs

[en] The decays B→Deν and B→D^*eν provide the simplest possibility to extract the CKM-matrix element |V_cb| from the experimental data. Using latest experimental results on semi-leptonic B-decays, |V_cb| has been extracted by means of QCD sum rules. |V_cb| (τ_B/1.32 ps)^1/2=0.037±0.002±0.003 has been obtained where the first error is experimental, the second from uncertainties in the sum rule parameters. (author) 13 refs.; 2 figs.; 1 tab

[en] The problem of dilepton production in heavy ion collisions at RHIC and LHC energies are studied. Due to the expected enhanced multiplicities and larger transverse momenta of hadrons arising from minijet production, the dilepton production rate dramatically increases. (author) 13 refs.; 3 figs

[en] Recently, triggered mainly by the results of the European Muon Collaboration concerning the spin of the proton, has been a lot of discussion about a possible strange quark content of the proton even at hadronic scales. Further evidence found in different fields of high energy and medium energy physics is discussed. Results from pion nucleon data, from the scattering of neutrinos on the proton and elastic electron nucleon experiments are presented. The interpretation of these experiments gives a sensitive test for different strange matrix elements. The latest results of these strange matrix elements are given. (author) 17 refs

[en] Different ways of determining α_s at LEP with the DELPHI detector are presented. The measurement of the hadronic and leptonic branching fraction of the τ-lepton leads to α_s(M_Z)=0.114₍-0.020)⁽+0.009). The hadronic jet and shape variables analysis of DELPHI gives α_s(M_Z)=0.113±0.007, adding all systematically and statistical errors in quadrature. The recently published Next to Leading Logarithm Approximation is studied and tested for a significant reduction in the scale error providing α_s(M_Z)=0.122±0.006. (author) 8 refs.; 3 figs

[en] The large mass of the top quark leads to a large weak decay width and a lifetime comparable to strong interaction time scales. This, in turn, leads to the possibility of interference between radiation of soft gluons in top production and decay. It is shown that such interference can occur, and its effects on the distribution of soft gluons in e⁺e^-→tt-bar are discussed. The behavior of the radiation pattern is illustrated in order to determine under what circumstances sensitivity to the top quark width is obtained. (author) 3 refs.; 3 figs

[en] A simple ansatz, using a fragmentation function which is derived from area law and relativistic string considerations as a production density of hadrons, describes a broad range of e⁺e^- annihilation data without need for the many quark level parameters. This approach inherently provides a semi - absolute baryon-to-meson normalization structure. The model emphasizes intermediate meson (popcorn) production between baryon and antibaryon as a new degree of freedom for baryon production. This ansatz is implemented using a modified version of the Lund JETSET Monte Carlo program, utilizing its parton shower treatment and hadron decay tables. With only ∼5 significant parameters and choices, quite good agreement has been found with a wide range of data at 10, 29 and 91 GeV. (author) 5 figs.; 1 tab

[en] Multi-strange baryon and anti-baryon production is expected to be a useful probe in the search for Quark-Gluon Plasma formation. The transverse mass distributions of negative particles, Λs, Λ-bars and Ξ^-s produced in sulphur-tungsten interactions at 200 GeV per nucleon are presented, and the corrected ratios Λ-bar/Λ, Ξ^-/Λ and Ξ^--bar/Λ-bar are given. The results are compared with published results of Ξ^--bar/Λ-bar for pp interactions and note that the ratio Ξ^--bar/Λ-bar obtained here appears large in comparison. Preliminary results for strange baryon and anti-baryon production in proton-tungsten interactions are also presented. (author) 8 refs.; 1 fig.; 1 tab