The strong coupling constant at large distances
In this paper we discuss effective strong coupling constants. Those are well behaved in the low-$Q^2$ domain, contrarily to $$\alpha_s$$ from pQCD. We present an extraction of an effective strong coupling constant from Jefferson Lab polarized data at intermediate and low $Q^2$. We also show how these data, together with spin sum rules, allow us to obtain the effective coupling constant over the entire $Q^2$ range. We then discuss the relation between the experimentally extracted coupling constant and theoretical calculations at low $Q^2$. We conclude on the importance of such study for the application of the AdS/CFT correspondence to QCD.