Various measures of the distribution of hadronic energy produced in high energy electron-positron annihilation provide precise tests of the promising fundamental theory of hadronic physics, quantum chromodynamics. Recent work at the University of Washington on such energy cross sections is reviewed.

A detailed introduction to the main topics in e +e - annihilation, with particular emphasis on experimental work. Invaluable to both graduate students studying high-energy physics & scientists entering the field.

The collisions of high energy photons produced at a electron-positron collider provide a comprehensive laboratory for testing QCD, electroweak interactions and extensions of the standard model. The luminosity and energy of the colliding photons produced by back-scattering laser beams is expected to be comparable to that of the primary ee− collisions. In this overview, we shall focus on tests of electroweak theory in photon-photon annihilation, particularly [gamma][gamma] 2!W+W−, [gamma][gamma] 2!Higgs bosons, and higher-order loop processes, such as [gamma][gamma] 2![gamma][gamma], Z[gamma] and ZZ. Since each photon can be resolved into a W+W− pair, high energy photon-photon collisions can also provide a remarkably background-free laboratory for studying WW collisions and annihilation. We also review high energy [gamma][gamma] tests of quantum chromodynamics, such as the scaling of the photon structure function, t{bar t} production, mini-jet processes, and diffractive reactions.