  We analyze the electromagnetic pion and kaon form factor by including
radiative and higher-twist effects within the framework of resummed pQCD in the
space-like region. We focus on the transition from the perturbative to
non-perturbative behavior in the phenomenological intermediate energy regime.
Using a modified k_T factorization scheme with transverse degrees of freedom,
we evaluate the non-perturbative soft contributions as distinct from the hard
contributions, ensuring no double counting via the Ward identity at Q^2=0. The
soft contributions are obtained via local quark-hadron duality while the hard
contributions rest on the well known collinear factorization theorem using
model wave functions with modified Brodsky-Huang-Lepage type ansatz and
distribution amplitudes derived from light-cone QCD sum rules. Our analysis
shows that the perturbative hard part prevails for large Q^2 beyond 50-100
GeV^2, while for low and moderate momentum transfers below 10-16 GeV^2 the soft
contributions dominate over the hard part. Thus, we demonstrate the importance
of including the soft contributions for explaining the experimental form-factor
data.

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology