Effective QCD coupling and power corrections to photon-photon scattering

Abstract

The scattering of two off-shell photons is an infrared-safe process in QCD. For photon virtualities in the range of a few GeV, accessible at LEPII, power-behaved contributions to the total cross section may become non-negligible. Based on a dispersion relation for the running coupling, we discuss these contributions and calculate the coefficients of the leading power correction for transversely polarized and longitudinally polarized virtual photons.

Comments: 9 pages, 2 figures, Latex