The electromagnetic pion form factor and instantons

We calculate the electromagnetic pion form factor at intermediate space-like momentum transfer from the QCD sum rule for the correlation function of two pseudoscalar interpolating fields and the electromagnetic current. This correlator receives essential contributions from direct (i.e. small-scale) instantons, which we evaluate under the assumption of an instanton size distribution consistent with instanton liquid and lattice simulations. The resulting form factor is in good agreement both with the sum rule based on the axial-current correlator and with experiment.