Two-loop QCD corrections to the heavy quark pair production cross section in e+e- annihilation near the threshold

We present the O(alpha_s) corrections to the cross section for the reaction e+e- --> gamma^* --> Q \bar Q in the energy region close to the threshold. We assume that the energy of the reaction is such that both the perturbative expansion in the strong coupling constant and expansion in the relative velocity of the heavy quarks can be used. We explicitly obtain terms O(alpha_s^2/beta^2, alpha_s^2/beta, alpha_s^2) in the relative correction to the threshold cross section. Using the ideas of asymptotic expansions, we demonstrate how an expansion of Feynman diagrams in the threshold region is constructed. From this analysis we obtain a matching relation between the vector current in full QCD and the quark-antiquark current in NRQCD at leading order in 1/m and the second order in the strong coupling constant.