The Fubini-Furlan-Rossetti sum rule revisited

The Fubini-Furlan-Rossetti sum rule for pion photoproduction on the nucleon is evaluated by dispersion relations at constant t, and the corrections to the sum rule due to the finite pion mass are calculated. Near threshold these corrections turn out to be large due to pion-loop effects, whereas the sum rule value is closely approached if the dispersion integrals are evaluated for sub-threshold kinematics. This extension to the unphysical region provides a unique framework to determine the low-energy constants of chiral perturbation theory by global properties of the excitation spectrum. (orig.)