The strong coupling from tau decays without prejudice
  We review our recent determination of the strong coupling \alpha_s from the OPAL data for non-strange hadronic tau decays. We find that \alpha_s(m^2_\tau) =0.325+-0.018 using fixed-order perturbation theory, and \alpha_s(m^2_\tau)=0.347+-0.025 using contour-improved perturbation theory. At present, these values supersede any earlier determinations of the strong coupling from hadronic tau decays, including those from ALEPH data. 
Diogo Boito, Maarten Golterman, Matthias Jamin, Andisheh Mahdavi, Kim   Maltman, James Osborne, Santiago Peris
hep-ph hep-ex hep-lat