# References

Comment on   
“Next-to-next-to-leading order vacuum polarization function of heavy quark near threshold and sum rules for $`b\overline{b}`$ system”   
and   
“Next-to-next-to-leading order relation between $`R(e^+e^{}b\overline{b})`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{sl}}(bcl\nu _l)`$ and precise determination of $`|V_{cb}|`$  
A.A.Penin and A.A.Pivovarov   
Institute for Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences,   
60th October Anniversary Pr., 7a, Moscow 117312, Russia   

Abstract

The most recent recalculation of the two-loop correction to the static quark-antiquark potential gave the numerical value different from the previously known one. We comment on the effect this change produces on the numerical estimates of the bottom quark pole mass $`m_b`$, the strong coupling constant $`\alpha _s`$ and the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix element $`|V_{cb}|`$ obtained in our papers . 

In two recent papers  numerical values of the bottom quark pole mass $`m_b`$, the strong coupling constant $`\alpha _s`$ and the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix element $`|V_{cb}|`$ have been determined from the sum rules for the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ system and the $`B`$-meson semileptonic width. These phenomenological results have been obtained by exploiting the next-to-next-to-leading order expression for the vacuum polarization function of a heavy quark near the threshold. This expression depends on the value of the two-loop correction to the static quark-antiquark potential. In the analyses of refs.  the numerical value of coefficient $`a_2`$ obtained in  was used. Recently the two-loop correction to the static potential has been recalculated in  with a new result for the coefficient $`a_2`$ that differs from the previous one. However we found that the use of corrected numerical value of the coefficient $`a_2`$ leads to a change of the numerical estimates for $`m_b`$, $`\alpha _s`$ and $`|V_{cb}|`$ obtained in our papers that lies well within the error bars given for these parameters in .

In ref.  we applied the sum rules technique for the system of $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ resonances to determine the values of the bottom quark pole mass $`m_b`$ and strong coupling constant $`\alpha _s`$. The analysis is based on the result for the heavy quark polarization function near the threshold in the next-to-next-to-leading order of perturbative QCD and relativistic expansion. This result depends, in particular, on the two-loop correction to the static potential of the quark-antiquark interaction first computed in . Recently this correction has been recalculated independently with another technique in . A different value of the coefficient $`a_2`$ came out

$$a_2=\left(\frac{4343}{162}+4\pi ^2\frac{\pi ^4}{4}+\frac{22}{3}\zeta (3)\right)C_A^2\left(\frac{1798}{81}+\frac{56}{3}\zeta (3)\right)C_AT_Fn_f$$

$$\left(\frac{55}{3}16\zeta (3)\right)C_FT_Fn_f+\left(\frac{20}{9}T_Fn_f\right)^2$$

which is smaller than the previous result of ref.  by an amount $`2\pi ^2C_A^2`$. After performing the analysis with the corrected value we found that this variation of the coefficient affects our numerical estimates only slightly. Namely, the value of $`\alpha _s`$ extracted from the sum rules is practically insensitive to the above variation while the value of $`m_b`$ decreases for $`0.1\%`$ when the corrected two-loop coefficient is used instead of the previous one. Since the theoretical uncertainty in $`m_b`$ exceeds $`1\%`$ this variation is negligible.

In the paper  we used the relation between the moments of the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ system spectral density and the inclusive $`B`$-meson semileptonic width for precise determination of the $`|V_{cb}|`$ matrix element. Evaluating the moments we used the next-to-next-to-leading order expression  of the heavy quark polarization function near the threshold computed with Peter’s coefficient $`a_2`$. Changing it to the correct Schröder’s value we obtain $`0.1\%`$ increase of the extracted numerical value for $`|V_{cb}|`$. The total theoretical uncertainty of this quantity exceeds $`3\%`$ that makes this variation completely negligible.

The reason for such a weak influence of the change on our results is that the coefficient $`a_2`$ parameterizes only a part of the correction to the NRQCD Hamiltonian in this order that makes the dependence on $`a_2`$ much softer than one could expect from the direct numerical change of the coefficient itself.

To conclude, the numerical estimates of the bottom quark pole mass, the strong coupling constant and the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix element $`|V_{cb}|`$ presented in refs  are insensitive to the correction  of the previously obtained value of the two-loop coefficient $`a_2`$ . The corresponding shifts of the extracted values of $`m_b`$, $`\alpha _s`$ and $`|V_{cb}|`$ are an order of magnitude smaller than the theoretical uncertainties of these quantities given in .