On the corrections of the wave function in weakly bound quarkonium

A non-relativistic quark-antiquark system with perturbative gluonic interactions (quarkonium) is considered, which allows a systematic expansion in the strong coupling constant α_s. In a non-abelian gauge theory, non-trivial corrections of the wave function already occur to O(α_s). We emphasize the existence of a renormalization, which is “natural” for such a system leaving only little freedom in the choice of the renormalization point Λ. The general corrections to O(α_s) including coulombic binding are presented. An explicit application to the lowest-order gluonic corrections of the leptonic decay of quarkonium is made. In this process the new term is sometimes much larger than the gluonic correction at the photon vertex and it varies greatly between different coulombic (S-wave) bound states.