Pion electroproduction, PCAC, chiral Ward identities, and the axial form factor revisited

We re-investigate Adler's PCAC relation in the presence of an external electromagnetic field within the framework of QCD coupled to external fields. We discuss pion electroproduction within a tree-level approximation to chiral perturbation theory and explicitly verify a chiral Ward identity referred to as the Adler-Gilman relation. We critically examine soft-momentum techniques and point out how inadmissable approximations may lead to results incompatible with chiral symmetry. As a result we confirm that threshold pion electroproduction is indeed a tool to obtain information on the axial form factor of the nucleon.