Hemisphere Soft Function at O(alpha_s²) for Dijet Production in e+e- Annihilation

We determine the O(alpha_s^2) corrections to the partonic hemisphere soft function relevant for thrust and jet mass distributions in e+e- annihilation in the dijet limit. In this limit the distributions can be described by a factorization theorem that sums large logarithmic terms and separates perturbative from nonperturbative effects. Using the known O(alpha_s^2) contributions of the jet functions and the hard coefficients in the factorization theorem, constraints from renormalization group evolution and nonabelian exponentiation, and results from numerical integration of O(alpha_s^2) QCD matrix elements, the O(alpha_s^2) corrections of the soft function can be determined unambiguously. We study the impact of subtracting contributions related to the O(Lambda_QCD) renormalon in the partonic threshold using the soft function gap proposed recently by Hoang and Stewart, and we discuss the importance to account for the renormalization group evolution of the gap parameter. As a byproduct we also present the previously unknown next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic anomalous dimensions for the hard coefficient that appear in the factorization theorem for the double differential invariant mass distribution for heavy quark pair production at high energies in the resonance region proven by Fleming etal.