Jet rates in electron-positron annihilation at O(αs3) in QCD

We compute production rates for two, three, four, and five jets in electron-positron annihilation at the third order in the QCD coupling constant. At this order, three-jet production is described to next-to-next-to-leading order in perturbation theory while the two-jet rate is obtained at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order. Our results yield an improved perturbative description of the dependence of jet multiplicity on the jet resolution parameter y(cut), particularly at small values of y(cut).