Optimal Renormalization-Group Improvement of the Perturbative Series for the e^+ e^- -Annihilation Cross-Section

Using renormalization-group methods, we derive differential equations for the all-orders summation of logarithmic corrections to the QCD series for R(s) = sigma(e^+ e^- --> hadrons)/sigma(e^+ e^- --> mu^+ mu^-), as obtained from the imaginary part of the purely-perturbative vector-current correlation function. We present explicit solutions for the summation of leading and up to three subsequent subleading orders of logarithms. The summations accessible from the four-loop vector-correlator not only lead to a substantial reduction in sensitivity to the renormalization scale, but necessarily impose a common infrared bound on perturbative approximations to R(s), regardless of the infrared behaviour of the true QCD couplant.