The Banks-Zaks expansion in perturbative QCD: an update

Abstract

The recent QCD calculations of the five-loop beta function and of R(e+e-) to O(alpha_s^4) provide one more term in the Banks-Zaks expansion in (16.5-nf). There is no longer any hope that the expansion could extend, even crudely, to low nf. Above nf=9, however, the results appear to be reasonably consistent from order to order.