RS-invariant all-orders renormalon resummations for some QCD observables

Abstract

We propose a renormalon-inspired resummation of QCD perturbation theory based on approximating the renormalization scheme (RS) invariant effective charge beta-function coefficients by the portion containing the highest power of $b$=$\frac{1}{6}(11N$--$2N_f)$, for SU($N$) QCD with $N_f$ quark flavours. This can be accomplished using exact large-$N_f$ all-orders results. The resulting resummation is RS-invariant and the exact next-to-leading order (NLO) and next-to-NLO (NNLO) coefficients in any RS are included. This improves on a previously employed naive resummation of the leading-$b$ piece of the perturbative coefficients which is RS-dependent, making its comparison with fixed-order perturbative results ambiguous. The RS-invariant resummation is used to assess the reliability of fixed-order perturbation theory for the $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ $R$-ratio, the analogous $\tau$-lepton decay ratio $R_{\tau }$, and Deep Inelastic Scattering (DIS) sum rules, by comparing it with the exact NNLO results in the effective charge RS. For the $R$-ratio and $R_{\tau }$, where large-order perturbative behaviour is dominated by a leading ultra-violet renormalon singularity, the comparison indicates fixed-order perturbation theory to be very reliable. For DIS sum rules, which have a leading infra-red renormalon singularity, the performance is rather poor. In this way we estimate that at LEP/SLD energies ideal data on the $R$-ratio could determine ${\alpha }_s(M_Z)$ to three-significant figures, and for the $R_{\tau }$ we estimate a theoretical uncertainty $\delta {\alpha }_s(m_{\tau })\simeq 0.008$ corresponding to $\delta {\alpha }_s(M_Z)\simeq 0.001$. This encouragingly small uncertainty is much less than has recently been deduced from comparison with the ambiguous naive resummation.

Comments: 25 pages, uses LaTeX, 12 Postscript figures, epsfig.sty 'elsart.sty' and 'elsart12.sty' are available via anonymous-ftp at ftp://ftp.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/supported/elsevier