Commensurate Scale Relations: Precise Tests of Quantum Chromodynamics without Scale or Scheme Ambiguity

Abstract

We derive commensurate scale relations which relate perturbatively calculable QCD observables to each other, including the annihilation ratio, the heavy quark potential, tau decay, and radiative corrections to structure function sum rules. The ratio of scales $Q_A/Q_B$ is unique at leading order and guarantees that the observables A and B pass through new quark thresholds at the same physical scale. In higher orders a different renormalization scale $Q^{n*}$ is assigned for each order n in the perturbative series such that the coefficients of the series are identical to that of a conformally invariant theory. QCD can thus be tested in a new and precise way by checking that the effective charges of observables track both in their relative normalization and in their commensurate scale dependence. The commensurate scale relations which relate the radiative corrections to the annihilation ratio to the radiative corrections for the Bjorken and Gross-Llewellyn Smith sum rules provides the generalization of the Crewther relation to non-conformal gauge theory.