A novel integral representation for the Adler function

Abstract

New integral representations for the Adler D-function and the R-ratio of the electron-positron annihilation into hadrons are derived in the general framework of the analytic approach to QCD. These representations capture the nonperturbative information encoded in the dispersion relation for the D-function, the effects due to the interrelation between spacelike and timelike domains, and the effects due to the nonvanishing pion mass. The latter plays a crucial role in this analysis, forcing the Adler function to vanish in the infrared limit. Within the developed approach the D-function is calculated by employing its perturbative approximation as the only additional input. The obtained result is found to be in reasonable agreement with the experimental prediction for the Adler function in the entire range of momenta $0 \le Q^2 < \infty$.