Spectral Densities and Borel Transforms in Compton Scattering

Abstract

We show that the leading double spectral density in sum rules for Compton-like processes can be obtained by simple properties of the Borel transform, extending an approach widely used in the literature on sum rules, and known to be valid only for the spectral densities of form factors. The extension is illustrated in the scalar case, where it is shown to be consistent with Cutkosky rules. Using arguments based on the analiticity properties of the vertex and the box diagrams, we show that Compton scattering is, however, a favourable case and indeed possible disagreements between the two methods are likely to be encountered in more general situations.