Large-angle Bhabha scattering and luminosity at flavour factories

The luminosity determination of electron-positron colliders operating in the region of low-lying hadronic resonances (E_cm ~ 1-10 GeV), such as BEPC/BES, DAPHNE, KEKB, PEP-II and VEPP-2M, requires the precision calculation of the Bhabha process at large scattering angles. In order to achieve a theoretical accuracy at a few 0.1% level, the inclusion of radiative corrections is mandatory. The phenomenologically relevant effect of QED corrections is taken into account in the framework of the Parton Shower (PS) method, which is employed both for cross section calculation and event generation. To test the reliability of the approach, a benchmark calculation, including exact O(alpha) corrections and higher-order leading logarithmic contributions, is developed as well and compared in detail with the PS predictions. The effect of O(alpha) next-to-leading and higher-order leading corrections is investigated in the presence of realistic event selections for the Bhabha process at the Phi-factories. A new Monte Carlo generator for data analysis (BABAYAGA) is presented, with an estimated accuracy of 0.5%. Possible developments aiming at improving its precision and range of applicability are discussed.