HADRONIC CORRECTIONS TO THE ANNIHILATION RATE OF HEAVY VECTOR-MESONS TO LEPTON PAIRS

Hadronic corrections to the annihilation rate of heavy vector mesons to lepton pairs are considered to leading nontrivial order in gluon exchange and in the quark-confining potential. It is shown that, to an excellent approximation, the rate is Γ(V→l+l-)(16πα2eQ2M2)|φ0(r=1m)|2, where M 2m is the vector-meson mass and φ0(r) is the solution of the zeroth-order nonrelativistic quark-antiquark bound-state problem. This has the effect of reducing the Van Royen-Weisskopf prediction for the rate. © 1979 The American Physical Society.