In this talk I give an overview of soft collinear effective theory (SCET), including a discussion of some recent advances. First, I briefly cover the foundation upon which SCET is built, namely QCD factorization, and review the theoretical framework of SCET. Next, I cover some recent calculations involving SCET. Since there are more interesting results than I can cover, I have picked four that that I find particularly exciting. The first two topics are dynamical threshold enhancements in Drell-Yan and resummation of higgs production at the LHC. Both topics center on the resummation of large Sudakov logarithms, however, for each there is a twist. In the case of threshold enhancements in Drell-Yan, it is partonic, not hadronic logarithms that are summed. In the case of higgs production at the LHC, the twist is that the logarithms are of a time-like scale. The third topic highlighted is electroweak corrections at high energy. In particular the electroweak Sudakov form factor. Finally, I end by discussing generalized event shapes in $e^+e^-$ annihilation.
It is argued that soft-collinear effective theory for processes involving both soft and collinear partons, such as exclusive B-meson decays, should include a new mode in addition to soft and collinear fields. These "soft-collinear messengers" can interact with both soft and collinear particles without taking them far off-shell. They thus can communicate between the soft and collinear sectors of the theory. The relevance of the new mode is demonstrated with an explicit example, and the formalism incorporating the corresponding quark and gluon fields into the effective Lagrangian is developed.
It has recently been argued that soft-collinear effective theory for processes involving both soft and collinear partons contains a new soft-collinear mode, which can communicate between the soft and collinear sectors of the theory. The formalism incorporating the corresponding fields into the effective Lagrangian is extended to include external current and four-quark operators relevant to weak interactions. An explicit calculation of the anomalous dimensions of these operators reveals that soft-collinear modes are needed for correctly describing the ultraviolet behavior of the effective theor…
We construct the soft-collinear effective Lagrangian which is manifestly gauge invariant order by order. Field redefinitions of collinear gauge fields and a proper decomposition of quark fields are necessary to make the Lagrangian gauge invariant. We can obtain the effective Lagrangian order by order in SCET_I and SCET_II by adopting appropriate power counting methods. Various types of current operators can be investigated using this formalism, and we choose the soft-collinear current as a specific example to present explicit radiative corrections. The hard-collinear, collinear, and ultrasoft …
We obtain analytic results for integrated triple-collinear splitting functions that emerge as collinear counter-terms in the context of the nested soft-collinear subtraction scheme arXiv:1702.01352 . With these results, all integrated subtraction terms required for NNLO QCD computations within this scheme are known analytically. In addition to improving efficiency and numerical stability of practical computations, the availability of these results will contribute towards establishing a general NNLO QCD subtraction formula for generic hard scattering processes in hadron collisions, similar to C…
Collinear fields in soft collinear effective theory (SCET) can be made invariant under collinear gauge transformations by multiplying them with collinear Wilson lines. We discuss how we can quantize SCET directly in terms of these gauge invariant fields, allowing to directly calculate S matrix elements using the gauge invariant collinear fields. We also show how for each collinear direction SCET can be written in terms of fields whose interactions are given by the usual QCD Lagrangian, and how external operators coupling these different directions can be constructed.
These lectures provide an introduction to Soft-Collinear Effective Theory. As applications we discuss resummation for (i) soft-photon effects in QED, (ii) event-shape variables and (iii) jet cross sections.
I present analytical expressions for the collinear and soft gluon corrections to Higgs production via the process b bbar -> H as well as gg -> H through next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (NNNLO). The soft corrections are complete while the collinear corrections include leading and some subleading logarithms. Numerical results at the Tevatron and the LHC are presented, primarily for b bbar -> H. It is shown that the collinear terms greatly improve the soft and virtual approximation at next-to-leading order (NLO) and next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO), especially when subleading terms are …
We introduce a method for the separation of soft and collinear logarithms in QCD parton evolution at $\mathcal{O}(α_s^2)$ and at leading color. Using an implementation of the technique in the Dire parton shower, we analyze the numerical impact of genuine triple-collinear corrections from quark pair emission in $e^+e^-\to$ hadrons.
Soft-collinear effective theory (SCET) has become a standard tool to study the factorization of short- and long-distance effects in processes involving low-energetic (soft) particles and high-energetic/low-virtuality (collinear) modes. In this contribution I give a brief overview on recent results for inclusive and exclusive B decays and on applications in collider physics.
In soft-collinear effective theory, we analyze the structure of rapidity divergence due to the collinear and soft modes residing in disparate phase spaces. The idea of an effective theory is applied to a system of collinear modes with large rapidity and soft modes with small rapidity. The large-rapidity (collinear) modes are integrated out to obtain the effective theory for the small-rapidity (soft) modes. The full SCET with the collinear and soft modes should be matched onto the soft theory at the rapidity boundary, and the matching procedure becomes exactly the zero-bin subtraction. The larg…
We present analytic formulas that describe fully-differential production of color-singlet final states in $q\bar q$ and $gg$ annihilation, including all the relevant partonic channels, through NNLO QCD. We work within the nested soft-collinear scheme which allows for fully local subtraction of infrared divergences. We demonstrate analytic cancellation of soft and collinear poles and present formulas for finite parts of all integrated subtraction terms. These results provide an important building block for calculating NNLO QCD corrections to arbitrary processes at hadron colliders within the ne…
We propose the addition of a new "soft-collinear" mode to soft collinear effective theory (SCET) below the usual soft scale to factorize and resum logarithms of jet radii $R$ in jet cross sections. We consider exclusive 2-jet cross sections in $e^+e^-$ collisions with an energy veto $Λ$ on additional jets. The key observation is that there are actually two pairs of energy scales whose ratio is $R$: the transverse momentum $QR$ of the energetic particles inside jets and their total energy $Q$, and the transverse momentum $ΛR$ of soft particles that are cut out of the jet cones and their energy …
In this talk I review an effective field theory that has been developed for processes with energetic hadrons, referred to as the Soft-Collinear Effective Theory. After outlining properties of the effective theory I briefly discuss its application to the processes B -> D pi and B -> Xs gamma.
Soft-collinear effective theory provides a systematic theoretical framework to describe the factorization of short- and long-distance QCD dynamics in hard-scattering processes that contain both, soft and energetic particles/jets. I present a short guide to recent theoretical achievements and to phenomenological applications in heavy B-meson decays.
The soft and collinear singularities of general scalar and tensor one-loop N-point integrals are worked out explicitly. As a result a simple explicit formula is given that expresses the singular part in terms of 3-point integrals. Apart from predicting the singularities, this result can be used to transfer singular one-loop integrals from one regularization scheme to another or to subtract soft and collinear singularities from one-loop Feynman diagrams directly in momentum space.
The factorization of soft and ultrasoft gluons from collinear particles is shown at the level of operators in an effective field theory. Exclusive hadronic factorization and inclusive partonic factorization follow as special cases. The leading order Lagrangian is derived using power counting and gauge invariance in the effective theory. Several species of gluons are required, and softer gluons appear as background fields to gluons with harder momenta. Two examples are given: the factorization of soft gluons in B->D pi, and the soft-collinear convolution for the B->Xs gamma spectrum.
I discuss general unified formulas for resumming collinear and soft contributions to QCD hard scattering cross sections at large x. Expansions of the resummed cross sections to next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order are also shown along with applications of the formalism.
Radiative corrections to high energy scattering processes were given previously in terms of universal soft and collinear functions. This paper gives the collinear functions for all standard model particles, the general form of the soft function, and explicit expressions for the soft functions for fermion-fermion scattering, longitudinal and transverse gauge boson production, single W/Z production, and associated Higgs production. An interesting subtlety in the use of the Goldstone boson equivalence theorem for longitudinal W+ production is discussed.
We consider Drell-Yan process in the threshold region $z\to 1$ where large logarithms appear due to soft-gluon radiations. We present a soft-collinear effective theory approach to re-sum these Sudakov-type logarithms following an earlier treatment of deep inelastic scattering, and the result is consistent with that obtained earlier through perturbative QCD factorization
We study the impact of leading soft-collinear effects on threshold and joint-resummed calculations for the production of prompt photons via parton fragmentation, complementing a previous study for direct production. We assess these effects for both fixed-target and collider kinematics. We find them to be small, but noticeable and comparable to the direct case.
Heavy-to-light transition form factors at large recoil energy of the light meson have been conjectured to obey a factorization formula, where the set of form factors is reduced to a smaller number of universal form factors up to hard-scattering corrections. In this paper we extend our previous investigation of heavy-to-light currents in soft-collinear effective theory to final states with invariant mass Lambda^2 as is appropriate to exclusive B meson decays. The effective theory contains soft modes and two collinear modes with virtualities of order m_b*Lambda (`hard-collinear') and Lambda^2. I…
We present analytic results that describe fully-differential NNLO QCD corrections to deep-inelastic scattering processes within the nested soft-collinear subtraction scheme. This is the last building block required for the application of this scheme to computations of NNLO QCD corrections to arbitrary processes at hadron colliders.
In this talk I review soft collinear effective theory. After a discussion of the formalism and properties of the effective field theory, I turn to phenomenology. I present results on color-suppressed B to D decays, and on the Upsilon radiative decay spectrum.
In high-energy processes which are sensitive to small transverse momenta, individual contributions from collinear and soft momentum regions are not separately well-defined in dimensional regularization. A simple possibility to solve this problem is to introduce additional analytic regulators. We point out that in massless theories the unregularized singularities only appear in real-emission diagrams and that the additional regulators can be introduced in such a way that gauge invariance and the factorized eikonal structure of soft and collinear emissions is maintained. This simplifies factoriz…
The effects of the soft gluon emission in hard scattering processes at the phase boundary are resummed in the soft-collinear effective theory (SCET). In SCET, the soft gluon emission is decoupled from the energetic collinear part, and is obtained by the vacuum expectation value of the soft Wilson-line operator. The form of the soft Wilson lines is universal in deep inelastic scattering, in the Drell-Yan process, in the jet production from e+e- collisions, and in the gamma* gamma* -> pi0 process, but its analytic structure is slightly different in each process. The anomalous dimensions of the s…
We provide a precise statement of hard-soft-collinear factorization of scattering amplitudes and prove it to all orders in perturbation theory. Factorization is formulated as the equality at leading power of scattering amplitudes in QCD with other amplitudes in QCD computed from a product of operator matrix elements. The equivalence is regulator independent and gauge independent. As the formulation relates amplitudes to the same amplitudes with additional soft or collinear particles, it includes as special cases the factorization of soft currents and collinear splitting functions from generic …
We consider the definition of a transverse-momentum-dependent parton distribution function (TMDPDF) and its evolution properties given a factorization theorem of Drell- Yan lepton pair production with a non-vanishing transverse momentum. We discuss rapidity divergences that exist in both limits of QCD: the soft and collinear. We argue that only when a specific combination of the soft and collinear matrix elements is formed, rapidity divergences cancel. We also argue that the soft matrix element, calculated in perturbation theory, contains only rapidity divergences and there is no genuine long-…
We present a universal formalism for transverse momentum resummation in the view of soft-collinear effective theory (SCET), and establish the relation between our SCET formula and the well known Collins-Soper-Sterman's pQCD formula at the next-to-leading logarithmic order (NLLO). We also briefly discuss the reformulation of joint resummation in SCET.
The soft-collinear effective theory has been recently applied to prove novel factorization theorems for many B decays. We describe here in some detail the factorization relation for color-supressed nonleptonic B -> D(*)0 pi0 decays and update the phenomenological analysis of these decays.
Soft-collinear effective theory (SCET) is applied to compute electroweak radiative corrections to Higgs production via gauge boson fusion, q q -> q q H. There are several novel features which make this process an interesting application of SCET. The amplitude is proportional to the Higgs vacuum expectation value (VEV), and so is not a gauge singlet amplitude. Standard resummation methods require a gauge singlet operator and do not apply here. The SCET analysis requires operators with both collinear and soft external fields, with the Higgs VEV being described by an external soft ϕ field. There …
I present calculations of soft and collinear corrections to the cross sections for single top quark production, and for Higgs production via b bbar -> H at the Tevatron and the LHC. I show that the corrections provide significant enhancements to the cross sections in both cases. For single top production the soft gluon corrections dominate the cross section, particularly in the s channel and in tW production. For Higgs production it is shown that purely collinear terms have to be included as well to provide an accurate calculation.
Recently, we have derived light-cone sum rules for exclusive B-meson decays into light energetic hadrons from correlation functions within soft-collinear effective theory. In these sum rules the short-distance scale refers to ``hard-collinear'' interactions with virtualities of order Λ_{QCD} m_b. Hard scales (related to virtualities of order m_b^2) are integrated out and enter via external coefficient functions in the sum rule. Soft dynamics is encoded in light-cone distribution amplitudes for the B-meson, which describe both the factorizable and non-factorizable contributions to exclusive B-m…
Gluon interactions involving spectator partons in collisions at hadronic machines are investigated. We find a class of examples in which a mode, called Glauber gluons, must be introduced to the effective theory for consistency.
The Drell-Yan process is analyzed in soft-collinear effective theory near the end-point region. It is assumed that the relevant final-state hadron energy $Q(1-z)$ where $z$ is the momentum fraction transferred to the virtual photon is the typical hadronic scale $\simΛ$, thus no intermediate scale exists. It is shown that this setup successfully reproduces the full theory results. We also discuss the factorized soft Wilson lines for the Drell-Yan process.
Two-jet event shape distributions, traditionally studied in the language of perturbative QCD, can be described naturally in soft-collinear effective theory. In this language, we demonstrate factorization of event shape distributions into perturbatively-calculable hard and jet functions and nonperturbative soft functions, and show how the latter contribute universal shifts to the mean values of various event shape distributions. Violations of universality in shifts of higher moments can give information on correlations of energy flow in soft radiation.
We extend next-to-leading logarithmic threshold and joint resummation for prompt photon production to include leading collinear effects. The impact of these effects is assessed for both fixed-target and collider kinematics. We find them in general to be small, but noticeable.
We study the differential cross sections for electroweak gauge-boson and Higgs production at small and very small transverse-momentum q_T. Large logarithms are resummed using soft-collinear effective theory. The collinear anomaly generates a non-perturbative scale q_*, which protects the processes from receiving large long-distance hadronic contributions. A numerical comparison of our predictions with data on the transverse-momentum distribution in Z-boson production at the Tevatron and LHC is given.
We present a simple way of separating the overlap between the soft and collinear factorization formulae of QCD squared matrix elements. We check its validity explicitly for single and double unresolved emissions of tree-level processes. The new method makes possible the definition of helicity-dependent subtraction terms for regularizing the real contributions in computing radiative corrections to QCD jet cross sections. This implies application of Monte Carlo helicity summation in computing higher order corrections.
In position space the interaction terms of soft-collinear effective theory must be multipole-expanded to obtain interaction terms with homogeneous scaling behaviour. In this note we provide a manifestly gauge-invariant formulation of the theory after this expansion in the presence of non-abelian gauge fields, extending our previous result. We give the effective Lagrangian (including the Yang-Mills Lagrangian for collinear and ultrasoft gluons) and heavy-to-light transition currents to second order in the power expansion, paying particular attention to the field redefinitions that lead to the g…
Soft-collinear effective theory (SCET) is used to demonstrate factorization for event shape distributions in the two-jet region. The leading nonperturbative power corrections to these distributions can be characterized as shape functions defined in terms of Wilson lines of soft gluons. The relation of these results to the well-known predictions for shifts in the distributions induced by the leading power corrections is discussed.
We present a fully differential description of a decay of a scalar Higgs boson into massive b-quarks valid at next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) in perturbative quantum chromodynamics (QCD). We work within the nested soft-collinear subtraction scheme extended to accommodate massive partons. We include the loop-induced contribution involving a Higgs coupling to a top quark. We test our calculation against results existing in the literature, comparing the predictions for the total decay width and jet rates.
In this talk I give an introduction to methods used to give a model independent description of QCD effects in B-decays. I discuss three useful expansions: mb/mW << 1 for the electroweak Hamiltonian, LambdaQCD/mb << 1 for Heavy Quark Effective theory, and LambdaQCD/Q << 1 for the Soft-Collinear Effective Theory where Q ~ mb is the large energy of light final state hadrons. I discuss predictions that can be made with each expansion.
We present compact analytic formulas that describe the decay of colorless particles to both $q \bar q$ and $gg$ final states through next-to-next-to-leading order in perturbative QCD in the context of the nested soft-collinear subtraction scheme. In addition to their relevance for the description of decays like $V \to q \bar q'$, $V= Z,W$, $H \to b \bar b$ and $H \to gg$, these results provide an important building block for calculating NNLO QCD corrections to arbitrary processes at colliders within the nested soft-collinear subtraction scheme.
The combination of collinear factorization with effective field theory originally developed for soft interactions of heavy quarks provides the foundations of the theory of exclusive and semi-inclusive B decays. In this article I summarize some of the later conceptual developments of the so-called QCD factorization approach that make use of soft-collinear effective theory. Then I discuss the status and results of the calculation of the hard-scattering functions at the next order, and review very briefly some of the phenomenology, covering aspects of charmless, electroweak penguin and radiative …
Soft-collinear effective theory is generalized to include soft massless quarks in addition to collinear fields. This extension is necessary for the treatment of interactions with the soft spectator quark in a heavy meson. The power counting of the relevant fields and the construction of the effective Lagrangian are discussed at leading order in Lambda/m_b. Several novel effects occur in the matching of full-theory amplitudes onto effective-theory operators containing soft light quarks, such as the appearance of an intermediate mass scale and large non-localities of operators on scales of order…
We present a new analysis of two-jet event shape distributions in soft collinear effective theory. Extending previous results, we observe that a large class of such distributions can be expressed in terms of vacuum matrix elements of operators in the effective theory. We match these matrix elements to the full theory in the two-jet limit without assuming factorization of the complete set of hadronic final states into independent sums over partonic collinear and soft states. We also briefly discuss the relationship of this approach to diagrammatic factorization in the full theory.
I review the Lee-Nauenberg thereom and discuss its inclusion of photons which are disconnected at the level of the S-matrix but connected at the level of the cross-section when there are initial and final state charged particles. I then expose a new set of soft collinear divergences in massless gauge theories which are omitted in the standard Lee-Nauenberg approach. It seems that highly questionable assumptions are needed to obtain finite cross-sections.
We describe in some detail the derivation of a power counting formula for the soft-collinear effective theory (SCET). This formula constrains which operators are required to correctly describe the infrared at any order in the Lambda_QCD/Q expansion (lambda expansion). The result assigns a unique lambda-dimension to graphs in SCET solely from vertices, is gauge independent, and can be applied independent of the process. For processes with an OPE the lambda-dimension has a correspondence with dynamical twist.
We present a method of merging the exclusive LO-matched high energy resummation of High Energy Jets (HEJ) with the parton shower of Pythia which preserves the accuracy of the LO cross sections and the logarithmic accuracy of both resummation schemes across all of phase space. Predictions produced with this merging prescription are presented with comparisons to data from experimental studies and suggestions are made for further observables and experimental cuts which highlight the importance of both high energy and soft-collinear effects.
We study the Sudakov form factor for a spontaneously broken gauge theory using a (new) Delta -regulator. To be well-defined, the effective theory requires zero-bin subtractions for the collinear sectors. The zero-bin subtractions depend on the gauge boson mass M and are not scaleless. They have both finite and 1/epsilon contributions, and are needed to give the correct anomalous dimension and low-scale matching contributions. We also demonstrate the necessity of zero-bin subtractions for soft-collinear factorization. We find that after zero-bin subtractions the form factor is the sum of the co…
We discuss the soft-collinear effective theory (SCET) and kinematic expansions in B-decays, focusing on recent results for color suppressed B -> D^(*) X decays. In particular we discuss model independent predictions for B^0 -> D^0 pi^0 and B^0 -> D^*0 pi^0, and update the comparison using new experimental data. We show why HQET alone is insufficient to give these results. SCET predictions are also reviewed for other B and Lambda_b decay channels that are not yet tested by data.
We construct the Lagrangian for an effective theory of highly energetic quarks with energy Q, interacting with collinear and soft gluons. This theory has two low energy scales, the transverse momentum of the collinear particles, p_perp, and the scale p_perp^2/Q. The heavy to light currents are matched onto operators in the effective theory at one-loop and the renormalization group equations for the corresponding Wilson coefficients are solved. This running is used to sum Sudakov logarithms in inclusive B -> X_s gamma and B -> X_u \ell nu decays. We also show that the interactions with collinea…
Effects of Glauber gluons, which cause the elastic scattering process between different jets, are studied in the frame of soft-collinear effective theory(SCET). Glauber modes are added into the Lagrangian before integrated out, which is helpful in studies on Glauber couplings of collinear and soft particles explicitly. It is proved that interactions after the hard collision cancel out in processes inclusive enough. So are interactions with the light cone coordinates Sx^{+}$ and $x^{-}$ greater than those of the hard collision. Eikonalization of Glauber couplings of active particles and absorpt…
An important unresolved question in strong interaction physics concerns the parameterization of power-suppressed long-distance effects to hard processes that do not admit an operator product expansion (OPE). Recently Bauer et al.\ have developed an effective field theory framework that allows one to formulate the problem of soft-collinear factorization in terms of fields and operators. We extend the formulation of soft-collinear effective theory, previously worked out to leading order, to second order in a power series in the inverse of the hard scale. We give the effective Lagrangian and the …
Factorization in gauge theories holds at the amplitude or amplitude-squared level for states of given soft or collinear momenta. When performing phase-space integrals over such states, one would generally like to avoid putting in explicit cuts to separate soft from collinear momenta. Removing these cuts induces an overcounting of the soft-collinear region and adds new infrared-ultraviolet divergences in the collinear region. In this paper, we first present a regulator-independent subtraction algorithm for removing soft-collinear overlap at the amplitude level which may be useful in pertubative…
We derive light-cone sum rules (LCSRs) for exclusive B-meson decays into light energetic hadrons from correlation functions within soft-collinear effective theory (SCET). In these sum rules the short-distance scale refers to ``hard-collinear'' interactions with virtualities of order (Lambda_{QCD}*m_b). Hard scales (related to virtualities of order m_b^2) are integrated out and enter via external coefficient functions in the sum rule. Soft dynamics is encoded in light-cone distribution amplitudes for the B-meson, which describe both the factorizable and non-factorizable contributions to exclusi…
We analyze the end-point region of the photon spectrum in semi-inclusive radiative decays of very heavy quarkonium (m alpha_s^2 >> Lambda_QCD). We discuss the interplay of the scales arising in the Soft-Collinear Effective Theory, m, m(1-z)^{1/2} and m(1-z) for z close to 1, with the scales of heavy quarkonium systems in the weak coupling regime, m, m alpha_s and m alpha_s^2. For 1-z \sim alpha_s^2 only collinear and (ultra)soft modes are seen to be relevant, but the recently discovered soft-collinear modes show up for 1-z << alpha_s^2. The S- and P-wave octet shape functions are calculated. W…
We calculate the anomalous dimensions of the next-to-leading order dijet operators in soft-collinear effective theory (SCET). We use a formulation of SCET where the Lagrangian is multiple copies of QCD and the interactions between sectors occur through light-like Wilson lines in external currents. We introduce a small gluon mass to regulate the infrared divergences of the individual loop diagrams in order to properly extract the ultraviolet divergences. We discuss this choice of infrared regulator and contrast it with the $δ$-regulator. Our results can be used to increase the theoretical preci…
