Renormalization group summation, spectrality constraints, and coupling constant analyticity for phenomenological applications of two-point correlators in QCD

The analytic structure in the strong coupling constant that emerges for some observables in QCD after duality averaging of renormalization-group-improved amplitudes is discussed, and the validity of the infrared renormalon hypothesis for the determination of this structure is critically reexamined. A consistent description of peculiar features of perturbation theory series related to hypothetical infrared renormalons and corresponding power corrections is considered. It is shown that perturbation theory series for the spectral moments of two-point correlators of hadronic currents in QCD can explicitly be summed in all orders using the definition of the moments that avoids integration through the infrared region in momentum space. Such a definition of the moments relies on the analytic properties of two-point correlators in the momentum variable that allows for shifting the integration contour into the complex plane of the momentum. For definiteness, an explicit case of gluonic current correlators is discussed in detail