Photon Structure Function Revisited

Abstract

The flux of papers from electron positron colliders containing data on the photon structure function ended naturally around 2005. It is thus timely to review the theoretical basis and confront the predictions with a summary of the experimental results. The discussion will focus on the increase of the structure function with x (for x away from the boundaries) and its rise with , both characteristics being dramatically different from hadronic structure functions. The agreement of the experimental observations with the theoretical calculations is a striking success of QCD. It also allows a new determination of the QCD coupling constant which very well corresponds to the values quoted in the literature.